Productivity and Economic Growth

One of the factors that led to the unsustained economic growth in the Philippines in the last three to four decades is low productivity.

Productivity is the value of the output produced by a unit of labor or capital.

Given the chance and proper training, the Filipino worker can be very productive based on the experiences of some multinational companies in the country, where the efficiency rate of the Filipino worker even reaches the highest global standards.

Productivity could be attributed to many things; the richer ones have more access to capital, land and many productivity-enhancing tools, such as computers, machineries, various types of transportation and other equipments, knowledge, education, training, better health, high motivation, higher aspiration and connections give the affluent ones the advantage over the poor to be more productive. With the many advantages that the rich have at their disposal, they could produce higher value-added goods and services compared to the poor. The result is the rich gets richer and the poor gets left behind.

One aspect that deters the country to be more competitive in the market place is the poor infrastructure of the country.