News

Article Type: News From: International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Volume 63, Issue 3

Way behind

Trinidad and Tobago is “way behind” in productivity, according to Labour Minister Errol McLeod.

The Minister was speaking at the recent FairShare Exposition at the Centre of Excellence in Macoya.

“We are way behind in so far as productivity is concerned and if our productivity levels are low then our costs are high”,he said. “We must try to get the value out of every dollar spent, whether it is in wages, whether it is in procurement of goods and services and if we are not competitive in that regard then we could find ourselves at the end of the line with hands out stretched waiting for a fish”.

McLeod, who also holds the portfolio of Small and Micro Enterprise Development, said the country was also behind in innovation,ranking 81st out of 142 countries in a recent global report.

Productivity is particularly crucial in a country where, he said, more than 90 per cent of businesses fell under the category of small and micro-enterprises.

Drones could aid agricultural productivity

Of course, planes are used in agriculture – for crop spraying mainly. No experts are suggesting that unmanned drones could aid productivity be surveying land and crops to identify where intervention is necessary. In most countries, laws will have to be changed to allow unmanned flight and address possible privacy issues – and this might prove more of a problem than addressing the technical issues.

Nigerian agriculture needs to grow

Agriculture is set to drop to about 25-30 per cent of Nigeria's GDP. This, of course, would not matter if the change was due to significant increases in GDP from non-agricultural sectors but this is unfortunately not the case. Agricultural productivity rises – when due to structural and technological changes – have the advantage of releasing labour for industry and the services sector … so it is a “double-win” situation.

One-trick pony

Despite the impressive growth and macroeconomic reforms, Sudan has become a mono-product economy, highly dependent on oil for exports and revenues, with oil contributing over 95 per cent of merchandise exports. This was always bad but with about 75 per cent of Sudan's oil revenues generated from southern oil production, the independence of the south has had immediate negative fiscal and balance of payments implications for north.

Sudan has rich agricultural resources but productivity is very low in the farming and livestock sub-sectors. According to recent calculations by FAO, yields from most of the major crops have been declining over time. Some estimates indicate that yields in agriculture in Sudan range from one-tenth to one-fifth of the yields obtained from research stations.

Too small

A Statistics Canada study that compares labour productivity in Canada and the USA suggests that Canada's comparatively large share of small firms is responsible for the difference in productivity – measured as GDP generated per hour worked – between the two countries.

Daniel Shapiro, dean of Simon Fraser University's Beedie School of Business, said the Statistics Canada numbers may appear disconnected with current realities because the data only span the period between 2002 and 2008.

Since then, Canada has seen the toppling of tech giant BlackBerry Ltd. and the withering away of the manufacturing sector,which had been led by auto companies whose production moved south during the recession. “The problem with those studies is,of course, they’re dated the moment they appear”, he said.

However, Dr Shapiro acknowledged the inability of smaller firms to take advantage of larger firms’ economies of scale remains a problem for the companies and the economy as a whole. “In general, there is a very strong positive correlation between the growth of labour productivity and the growth of income per capita”, he said. “It's the growth of productivity that makes us wealthy in the end”.

He suspects there may be new efficiency gains to be made for small firms with the adoption of new technology like 3-D printing and increased computing power. “I’ve certainly thought about the notion that the 21st-century economy will consist of more,smaller firms that are actually very productive because they’re going to be very knowledge-based”, he said.

Get engaged

Modern Russia's workforce has a number of advantages, including high literacy and labour participation rates and an impressive proportion of people with post-secondary education. Yet a study in 2012 by Gallup suggests that more than 80 per cent of the country's employees are less than fully engaged at work; they lack an emotional connection to their workplaces and are not enthusiastic about their jobs.

Further, almost one-fifth of all Russian workers are actively disengaged, meaning they harbour negative feelings about their jobs that prevent them from creating value for their businesses. Instead, they often do more harm than good and hinder Russia's overall economic performance.