Jamaicans - Read This!

The publication Jamaica: Productivity Summary Report 1972-2007, by the Jamaica Productivity Centre, should be required reading for all Jamaicans - government ministers, officers and public and private sector management and employees. It states: "Labour productivity or output per worker has been declining at an annual rate of 1.3 per cent over the past 34 years (1973-2007). For the past five years (2003-2007) this decline has increased to 1.8 per cent per annum."

And this is at a time when technoloy has been revolutionsining manufacturing, offices, hopsitals and mostl other workplaces.

The statistics also compare most unfavourably with the figures achieved by Jamaica's Caricom partners who have shown improvements of 1.5 per cent per annum from 1972, and pf 2 per cent in the last 10 years. The report states: "In 1997 the average worker in Trinidad was three times more productive than the average Jamaican worker. However, this gap had widened to over five times by 2007".