Source: The Channel

Turnstone features in an article on workplace productivity.

Productivity in New Zealand has been officially measured since 1988. According to Bryan Dunne, advisor to Jonh Key and Bill English, productivity is "basically a measure of how efficently inputs (labour and capital) are used to produce outputs (goods and services).

Improving productivity is about either 'doing things better / working smarter'), or 'doing better things'. Increase productivity is good for everyone - it promotes better goods and services, and a more efficient, stable work environment.

Productivity is notoriously difficult to measure but studies by StatisticsNZ and the Reserve Bank, have attempted to gain a clearer understanding of New Zealands productivity levels. Because of measurement difficulties, stated Dunne, the most common forms of measuring are:

GDP per person employed in the economy
and;
GDP per hour worked.

"The latter (GDP/hr) is the preferred and most widely used measure of productivity," clarified Dunne. "It allows fo the fact that some workers are part-time and some are full time, thereby avoiding messy definations about 'employed'." Essentially if GDP grows faster than the number of hours worked, there is an improvement in the productivity of labour.

According to National Party Leader, John LKey, labout productivity showed a growth of just 0.4% for the year to March 2006 the lowest on record. Given that the average productivity growth for New Zealand since 1988 is 2.5%, we are currently looking at a significant decrease, although the treasury predicts an increase in the coming months.

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