Many nations have realised that the only true long-term key to economic growth is productivity improvement. The problem is that this realisation is often the end, rather than the start, of the matter.  Governments and their agencies exhort commerce - and perhaps even the population - to improve productivity and to compete - but without

I've referred to the subject (threat?) of robots several times in the last year. Clearly they (robots) are going to have a big impact on many companies and on many people's jobs - but exactly how, in what ways ,is not yet clear. For some time humans and robots are likely to be co-workers. Skilled

Global rating agency Moody's Investors Service sees a persistent decline in labour productivity growth, stemming from an ageing population and slow investments, as posing a key threat to global economic recovery. The agency's report, titled "Collapse of Global Productivity Growth Remains Sizable Risk to Credit Conditions," published last week said global labour productivity growth fell

The last 2 decades have sen the inexorable rise of the robot - especially in motor manufacture.  We have all sen the robotic arms lifting and fitting panels, spray painting, and so on.  Some workers have presumable been displaced  - but the economic gains have been substantial, surely. Well ,thisc rise of †he robot has

In the developing world, education standards have been rising for decades.  More and more of the population go to university and the number of degrees, and even higher degrees, rises relentlessly. Yet, still employers maintain - as they always have done - that they cannot get employees with the right skills. Note the word 'skills'.

Japan has a highly automated industrial sector which has fuelled productivity growth over several years. However this efficient sector is only a pat of the Japanese economy (though an important part) and the rest of the economy - and especially the services sector has a very poor track record - relying on long hours of

Donald Trump is hailing his tax cutting plans as 'radical' and likely to stimulate US growth.How will they affect US productivity? Well, the way in which productivity responds to trade measures is not clear ... but if corporations are paying less tax, they may spend more on capital infrastructure or on R&D - and both

Is laziness helpful in making people more productive? does it encourage them to seek less arduous ways of achieving the same output? Well, certainly the opposite is not true  Busyness is not a sign of high productivity. Too many people are busy but essentially unproductive - because they are either doing the wrong things or

The head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, has issued a stark warning that living standards will fall around the world unless governments take urgent action to increase productivity by investing in education, cutting red tape and incentivising research and development. Whether or not, you agree that her prescription is what is needed to

I have just returned from the World Productivity Congress in Bahrain - a fascinating event in a fascinating country. I am not going to report on the Congress ... but the spirit of the event is summed up in the Congress Declaration reproduced here. We, the members of the global productivity movement, gathered in Bahrain