IBM"s year-old, $2.5 billion computer-chip plant in East Fishkill, N.Y., is a manufacturing marvel. Three-hundred robotic tools, six miles of networking cable and more computing power than NASA uses to launch the space shuttle all work together to produce tens of millions of chips a year—each with circuitry 800 times thinner than a human hair. Not that you"ll find much human hair around the plant. Other chip plants need about 400 employees at all times to operate the Complex machinery. But today at East Fishkill, 100 engineers per shift oversee a totally automated production line. Last winter, when a fierce snowstorm sent everyone home early, the machines hummed along overnight without any problem. "The productivity increases for IBM are amazing," says Perry Hartswick, the senior program manager at the plant. Productivity improvements like those at IBM can be a boon in a healthy economy, helping to make American business more competitive abroad and keeping a lid on inflation as employees work harder to meet strong demand for their products. But today"s soaring productivity is having a harmful side effect: it"s holding back job growth. Last Thursday the Commerce Department reported that GDP grew at an annual rate of 2.4 percent. But unemployment was hovering at an uncomfortably high 6.2 percent in July, and 44,000 additional jobs were axed from payrolls, marking the sixth month in a row the economy has lost jobs. One fault is that seemingly profligate spending on high tech during the "90s boom. More than three years after the bust, it"s continuing to generate a productivity payoff inside companies. Even industries like entertainment and higher education, once thought to be largely immune to productivity improvements, have been revolutionized by digital media, online research tools, cell phones and e-mail. But that"s not the only reason for the problem. Over the last three years, American manufacturers have shipped 2.6 million jobs to low-Wage countries like China. Meanwhile, a flood of white-collar jobs—like computer technicians and customer service reps—have gone to countries with well-educated work forces, such as India. There is of course a simple solution to all this-a hotter economy, with stronger demand that would force companies to hire workers. But the seven-point decline in July of the Consumer Confidence Index doesn"t offer much near-term hope. Some economists also worry that Bush"s deep tax cuts are "a very expensive way of getting an amount of stimulus that is too small," says Janet Yellen, a professor at the Haas School of Business who also chaired Clinton"s Council of Economic Advisers. The Bush administration responds by asking Americans to wait until the full effect of the cuts are felt and the economy kicks into a high gear growth rate of 3 percent to 4 percent. For the millions of Americans who are out of work, that day can"t come soon enough.Prof. Janet Yellen thinks that Bush"s deep tax cuts are