The rate of growth of publishers has dropped from an average 5.64% per annum over the 15 years prior to 1995, to 2.55% in the 15 years after 1995. Had growth remained above 5%, the 4,950,344 Witnesses in 1995 would have exceeded 11 million in 2010. Instead, there were only 7 million in 2010 - a difference of 4 million people. Factors on conversion and retention, such as Internet education, resulted in growth of 2 million instead of 6 million, just one third of that expected in 1995.
I read this and it got me thinking about how much the global population is rising by annually. So I looked this up on Wikipedia.
Global population growth is around 80 million annually, or 1.2% p.a. The global population has grown from 1 billion in 1925 to 7 billion in 2012. It is expected to keep growing to reach 11 billion by the end of the century. Most of the growth occurs in the nations with the most poverty, showing the direct link betwen high population growth and low standards of living. The nations with high standards of living generally have low or zero rates of population growth.
If you factor in global population growth the witnesses growth is around 1.35% a year of newly active or reactivated witnesses. This is done by subtracting 1.2%pa from the 2.55% derived from the year books at jwfacts.com
If you read the jwfacts.com analysis the numbers spike and then taper off every time there's a major world event like September 11 or the recent global downturn, so a lot of people on the fringe seem to be playing "chicken" with god.
So, approximately one in every 909 people globally is a JW.
Since 1995 the average JW growth rate has more than halved from 5.64% per annum over the 15 years prior to 1995, to 2.55%.
If it halves again over the next 15 years it will be growing at 1.275%, just a smidgeon over the rate of growth for global population. An actual growth of just 0.075%. All this from an organisation that according to its own figures has each of its members investing just a touch below twenty hours a month (on average) in converting new members.
Now, 20 hours per month... 240 hours a year per member, plus all that printed material / websites / meetings for 1.35% growth factoring out population growth. How inefficient, ineffective and still it continues to plod on like some camel in the dessert slowly dying of thirst eventually it will collapse under its own weight, or a flywheel on some great steam engine slowly, almost imperceptibly spinning to a stop.
In a kingdom hall complex of 3 congregations, each of 100 members (300 total members) sees about 4 people a year join for 72,000 hours spent in converting new members. 18,000 hours of reported time per convert, plus all the time and effort of printing material, producing websites and running meetings.
The figures leave me feeling absolutely flabbergasted. It's a jaw-dropping amount of effort for very little result in an organisation that is supposedly trying preach the 'kingdom message' and warn people about an impending war called Armaggeddon. This must surely lead any thoughtful person to wonder if indeed that is the real purpose of the organisation or whether it is just, as many on here would argue, a literature selling business pyramid scheme masquerading as such and I agree with them.
Both when I was a JW and now that I'm on the outside looking in I'm still staggered by how apathetic they are (I was) towards (A) their message (B) just how many good people will supposedly die if their message isn't accepted (C) that a loving God would do what they propose he's going to do anyway (D) their ability to see it as counting hours rather than saving lives (E) the impossibility of the task that God has been purported to have given them (F) the fact that they see a Paradise as a place in which the current GB and anointed will rule over them as kings and priests and the elders and MS's are princes.
... more like 
with the 
... this guy just needs a book bag to fit in... or maybe a literature cart... 
