En Cotizalia ; Kike Vázquez delights us with a post about productivity, that I liked so much that I'll copy it here:
I do not know if you happen to everyone but to me that about productivity that is talked so much not just stay clear to me. They say that we are working little, that we are lazy, that we have to lower our salary by 25% to start being competitive or "to work a little more and earn a little less" according to other sources. Go, well, we are so cheeky the Spaniards?! Fortunately, they warn, because to today I went out with confidence into the street without fear of being extorted by any of these hazardous man…
So this weekend I planed to investigate this fact, trying to figure out how far I can distrust to leave home and how much salary should I stoop to label me as an honored citizen (one does not want to be pointed whit the finger for being a burden for Spain, hear you!). To do this I used Eurostat data, in order to have homogeneous figures, specific, and not base it on value judgments of others as is done for sure with good intentions.
Given the multitude of ways that exist to measure the productivity, I'm not sure where to start. How about the actual production per worker? We can compare who produces more, if a Spanish worker, a Portuguese worker or a German, for example. Here I present data for the European Union and some other countries to compare in the terms in which Eurostat does (PPS).
If you click on the image and look closely you will see that in 2009, latest available data, ;the production of a Spanish had nothing to envy to a Swedish, a Dutchman or an Italian, and even exceeds to Germany, United Kingdom, Denmark or Japan! It seems that, at average, we are not as stupid as we sometimes listen. The statistics indicate that when a Spanish work get more production than someone at random in the eurozone. And every worker in our country has more output than the average, be the Europe of 27, or the 15 ...
This, that someone may seem strange, occurs by a very simple reason, in Spain they work a lot of hours. What this graph tells us is that each worker produces more, for example than a German, but it does not tell us nor the time spent nor the cost involved. Nevertheless, one thing is clear, in Spain people works, and about vague nothing at all. At least on average.
However, despite the useful information, the data are "dubious" for various reasons of wanting to know the real productivity. They speak about effectiveness but not about efficiency, i.e., about production instead of productivity, and it does not take into account whether the workers have a full time contract or part-time contract. To do this go a step further and graph the output per worked hour , concept that do us close to what we're looking for.
Again if the user clicks on the graph you can see that, ;although we can not compare to leading countries in productivity like the U.S. , Belgium and Holland, where people work hard and good, we are far from others like Greece or Portugal, which almost doubled in this indicator. It's said that comparisons are odious, but all those that put us inside of the PIGS y nos recomiendan junto a Portugal “mejorar la productividad” les recomendaría observar con detenimiento la gráfica. ;It's funny to see that we are ahead of pointers countries such as Italy , United Kingdom or Finland and close to Denmark, Sweden and even the average euro-zone. Now I start to have less remorse of conscience for not working for free...
We see clearly that we are not so far from being as the Eurozone (aunque de cerrarse dicho gap ;according to McKinsey - Fedea it would be created one million jobs then it is not little), but in contrast we earn much less. In fact, according to this report, it is said that hiring a graduate between 25 and 34 years old costs in our country 34.000 EUR, by the 66.000 euros from Germany or the 70.000 euros de Reino Unido. ;Linking these data with what Eurostat tells us we have that our British neighbors are less productive on average than us but they earn twice! And then "markets" and officials recommend us to improve productivity? Well!
It is true that the Eurostat figures are adjusted for PPS, i.e., according to the purchasing power of each, therefore the comparison with wages would not be real. Despite this it is inferred that perhaps we are not as unproductive as we hear again and again "to the Goebbels-style", which obviously does not mean that we should improve if we really want to belong to Europe.
Returning to the data, If a Spaniard worker produces more than the average in the eurozone and does it in a time not much higher than this . What is happening here? Why we all point fingers to us? What argument is used to do this? ;I present you the unit labour cost, or what is the same, the cost in relation to what is produced. Anyone that tries to justify that Spain today is very unproductive will use the chart below.
I tried to include the most representative countries so we can get an idea. As with so much graphic lines is a little confusing what you see, so I will try to explain it. If the line goes up is that the costs for the same production are rising in the country, and if they fall, backwards, therefore directly affects the competitiveness. Tomando como base el año 2000 podemos ver que al final de la década ;where most have gone up wages is in Greece, Denmark, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, Belgium, Finland, France, Sweden and Germany in this order.When someone represents this graph it is a condition sine qua non to ignore that the starting point salaries are not equal. In other words, that if a Spaniard charges 100 in the year 2000 and a German 150, At the end of the decade the Spanish will have 130 and the German 159. Now well, It should be noted strongly several times that we are losing competitiveness , and for more inri remove most of the countries of the graph, if possible leaving only Germany, Portugal, Ireland and Greece. Then after allowing a few minutes to reflect to a public without more data to compare, you must say "it is imperative to enhance competitiveness to not be rescued", and everyone will go home repentant and crestfallen. Mission accomplished. The reality is that, as we have seen, our productivity is not so distant from that of the Eurozone, as patriotic salaries are clearly inferior to foreigners it is logical that they tend to match. That's all! But in addition, with such a graphic it could give the impression that the normal Spaniard has been profiting like never before, nothing is further from reality, if we make the same graph eliminating the inflationary effect:
Actually the Spanish citizens have contained their salary even more than the heroic Germanic, i.e., en este período de “fiesta y borrachera” han perdido poder adquisitivo. ;So we can see that in 2010 the average worker has seen how they went almost six points with respect to 2000 of their real salary, which contrasts with almost all of Europe, where salaries were higher.
Conclusion? After of the opinion that if we are not rescued is a miracle, to see that there is a lot of interest lies. Obviously not everything is perfect, We have 20% unemployment, so if these people was incorporated into the labour market the average productivity will decline. To avoid this as much as possible it is true that who has no job and want to search for it will have to reduce its claims. I also do not find anything when I say that our labour market is more rigid than is desirable, causing no more earn who makes its best (or for that should serve the modifications made in future).
Moreover we are an indebted country, with an inadequate industry, si queremos cambiar esa situación y exportar debemos ofrecer algo a las empresas y por ello nuestro sueño de cobrar como europeos no podrá ser durante mucho tiempo. ;We are in a bad period and we must make an effort, from the one above to who is below, but from there to blame the workers as tacitly is doing is a long way. We can be proud of many things, and I hope that this article has helped to be a little more.
(Via: ;Cotizalia)
