What does this indicator measure?

The indicator below shows the productivity, growth in productivity from 1980 to 2009, and causes of productivity growth for the Syracuse, Albany, Buffalo, and Rochester MSA’s.  Additionally, the measures are shown for all Metro Areas and the 100 Largest Metro Areas where applicable.

Paul Krugman famously described productivity growth as “the single most important factor affecting our well-being.” It is the foundation of economic development: recombining inputs, leveraging innovations, and growing the stock of knowledge to produce more value out of scarce resources, increasing living standards. Gross metropolitan product (GMP) per job is one of the most basic measures of productivity. Overall growth of GMP per job within a metropolitan area reflects two changes. First, it reflects the aggregate increase in GMP per job within the metropolitan economy. Second, it reflects changes in the number of jobs in individual industries. Because productivity varies among industries, shifts out of more productive industries and into less productive ones will lead to lower aggregate productivity growth. Productivity change due to industry shifts is shown below. If overall change is less than “expected change absent industry shifts”, this indicates that a metropolitan economy has shifted jobs from more productive industries to less productive industries.