Increasing labour productivity is crucial for a country's economic growth and overall competitiveness. It is also a vital tool for creating quality jobs and reducing poverty, since productivity gains can lead to higher wages, better working conditions and investment in human resources.
These are the messages of a new ILO report 1/ prepared for the Asian Employment Forum in Beijing (13 to 15 August). ILO Online spoke with Ms. Sachiko Yamamoto, ILO Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, about the link between productivity growth, employment creation and decent working conditions.
ILO Online: Is it correct that Asia and the Pacific's stunning growth in recent years was mainly based on productivity increases?
Sachiko Yamamoto: Labour productivity has played a leading role in Asia and the Pacific's tremendous growth performance. The increase in the productivity of the region's workers between 2000 and 2006 accounted for 83 per cent of the region's total economic growth. The rest is the result of about 150 million workers joining the Asian workforce.
Productivity growth in Asia and the Pacific will be even more important in the coming 10 to 20 years. The reason is simple. As employment growth slows down, due to demographic and labour force trends, Asia will need faster labour productivity growth if it wants to maintain its recent GDP growth rates.
In East Asia maintaining rapid GDP growth will require the annual rate of labour productivity growth to rise from 7.6 per cent to 8.1 per cent. In Asia's developed economies it would require acceleration from 1.5 to 2.1 per cent.
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