Fiji’s labour productivity grew by 12% during the period 2012 to 2016.
Acting Permanent Secretary for Ministry of Employment, Productivity, and Industrial Relations, Manasa Lesuma mentioned this during the launch of Fiji’s Productivity Report 2018.
He says this is strengthened by favourable labour market conditions due to growth in the services sector, domestic investment, increased spending on education and public infrastructure.
Lesuma also says this shows that there is a significant opportunity for the Fijian workforce to improve the value they add in terms of the output produced and there is also a need for stronger workforce participation into economic activities like paid employment or set‑up of own businesses.
This upward trends indicate that Fiji has been successfully utilising the labour resources more efficiently to produce output.
Labour productivity based on hours worked increased by 11.1% while labour productivity based on employment numbers increased by 17.2%. This increase was due to the heavy human capital investment made by the government like the increased support and allocation of resources for Ministry of Education has absorbed more students into the schools and enabled labour to be more productive.
The report also states that increased physical investment in capital infrastructure of the economy has improved labour productivity.
ADVERTISEMENT
