Productivity Growth lowest ever

The Business Roundtable has just highlighted that today’s labour productivity statistics are the lowest on record.

This should be of great concern to everyone. High levels of labour productivity growth are the key to lifting our national income compared to Australia and the OECD. It can’t happen just by increasing wages without productivity.

The annual increase is a mere 0.4%, compared to the average of 2.5% over the last 18 years.

Now look at it over periods of Government. Labour from April 00 to March 06 is an average of a miserable 1.2%.

From April 91 to March 00 the average was 2.9% – two and a half times as great.