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The main objective of this article is to highlight the linkages between skills, innovation and productivity in Canada. Using firm-level data for the manufacturing sector, the article examines the impact of different types of skills and of government financial support for innovation activities for product and process innovation. The article also uses panel data to analyse the role of skills in accounting for the inter-industry differences in labour productivity levels among Canadian manufacturing industries during the 1987-1996 period. Show less

The Asian Productivity Organization (APO) is an inter-governmental regional organisation that aims to increase productivity and, consequently, accelerate economic development in Asia and the Pacific region. The APO serves as a think tank, regional advisor, institution builder and clearinghouse for productivity information to member countries. It assists member countries through human resource development, technical expert assistance and dissemination of knowledge and know-how on productivity. This annual report gives a comprehensive review and serves as a record of the multi-faceted work undertaken by the APO in 1998. Show less

The Asian Productivity Organization (APO) is an inter-governmental regional organisation that aims to increase productivity and, consequently, accelerate economic development in Asia and the Pacific region by mutual cooperation among member countries. This annual report gives a comprehensive review and serves as a record of the many-faceted work undertaken by the APO in 1997. Show less

Future Productivity looks at Australia's productivity performance and how digital technologies and management capability may affect productivity in the years ahead. Future Productivity is the third edition of Industry Insights.

Chapter 1 examines recent productivity performance, taking a new perspective by exploring the link between productivity and how quickly the economy is changing. Chapter 2 takes stock on digital technology use in Australia, and has a closer look at how the specific digital technologies are affecting critical industries in Australia. Chapter 3 explores the impact of management capability on the productivity of Australian firms.

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In recent years there have been community concerns in Australia about job security and the employment implications of government reforms and other factors that enhance productivity. However, a study by the Industry Commission (IC) in 1997 indicated that although there is not a negative long-term relationship between productivity growth and employment at the aggregate level, productivity growth may affect employment in particular industries, occupations and regions. This paper builds on the earlier work by the IC and focuses on the relationships between multifactor productivity growth and the structure of employment. In particular, the paper's objective is to investigate whether multifactor productivity growth has an association with changes in the key characteristics of employment of most concern to the community: industry; skill (the impact on workers with lower educational attainment or in low-skilled occupations); age (the effects on younger and older workers); part-time and casual employment status (changes in the incidence of these work arrangements); and the impact on the distribution of earnings. The authors examined employment patterns in industries for differences between high productivity growth industries and low productivity growth industries. They also sought to identify any relationships between industry productivity growth and changes in industry employment profiles.

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This paper investigates whether and how worker composition, ownership and management affect the productivity of firms. To this aim, we use a dataset obtained by integrating the micro-data drawn from Rilevazione su Imprese e Lavoro (RIL), a survey conducted by Inapp in 2010 and 2015 on a representative sample of Italian limited liability and partnership firms, with the AIDA archive containing comprehensive information on the balance sheets of almost all the Italian corporations. We apply different regression models and the findings reveal that a higher share of skilled workers within firms and more experienced managers are associated with higher productivity levels. In addition, firms run by managers with higher education are more likely to introduce innovation. Finally, family ownership and the coincidence of management with ownership are negatively related with firm productivity.

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This research study investigated a method to demonstrate that Australian enterprises that invest in the training of their employees gain a return from that investment through increased employee productivity. The research, using a case study approach, compares enterprise expenditure on training of personnel with labour productivity across a small group of enterprises producing similar products or providing similar services. Case studies were undertaken in four industries: footwear manufacture, wire products manufacture, the hotel industry and supermarkets, with between five and eight firms in each cluster located in cities in all states of Australia. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected and analysed to test for a relationship between training investment and labour productivity. Conclusions were drawn about the effectiveness of the method used, and there are recommendations for the future. Show less

The connection between skill development and productivity growth is an issue constantly under discussion when analysing competitiveness of countries. The impact of workers' training and educational level on the competitiveness of economies is not only noticed worldwide but also at regional and sub-regional levels. Due to their contribution to the development of skills and competencies, vocational training institutions are a source of comparative advantage to promote the growth in productivity and reflect such growth in more and better jobs. A better access to relevant vocational training enables more workers to take advantage of the benefits of technological advance and economic growth and it is an important policy tool to ensure a fair and efficient adjustment process to technological changes. This document includes a selection of the case documents presented by the institutions at the technical meeting 'The role of vocational training in productivity, employment and development in Latin America and the Caribbean' (Salvador, Bahia, September 2007), which was organized by ILO/Cinterfor with the support of the ILO Skills and Employability Department and sponsored by SENAI of Brazil. With the purpose of activating and managing knowledge applied to vocational training, Cinterfor/ILO has decided to promote the spread of good practices and therefore sharing knowledge regarding the role played by vocational training in the growth of productivity.

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'Exploring the links between skills and productivity' was commissioned by the East Midlands Development Agency (emda) to provide a detailed assessment of the direct and indirect links between skills and productivity. The project used the Treasury's 'five drivers' framework to explore how the interaction between skill, innovation and enterprise can influence regional economic performance. This report is intended to inform the evidence base concerning the relationship between skills and productivity which emda, and other organisations, may use to strengthen policy. [The five drivers of productivity are:] (1) skills; (2) innovation; (3) enterprise; (4) competition; and (5) investment. In general the evidence suggests that skill levels are related to productivity: more highly skilled people produce more high value goods and services more efficiently. But there are substantial gaps in the evidence base, particularly the lack of evidence on causal relationships and the treatment of skills utilisation as a black box.

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This paper presents the first panel data evidence on the productivity effects of training in Germany. It uses a large and representative establishment panel data set for all profit oriented sectors of the economy. Increasing the share of employees participating in training in the first half of a year has a positive and significant effect on firm productivity in the same and subsequent year. The impact in the third year is positive but insignificant. While formal internal and external training courses increase productivity in the same year and the years after, their impact decreases over time. The positive productivity impact of quality circles increases over time, while training on the job has a persistent negative productivity effect. When we control for selectivity and unobserved heterogeneity, the measured productivity effects further increase, suggesting that firms with an inefficient production structure deliberately use training in order to boost productivity. In a fixed effects panel regression, simultaneously taking endogeneity of training into account, formal internal and external courses, self-induced learning and quality circles have a positive impact on the fixed productivity effects, while training on the job, seminars and talks, and job rotation do not have an impact on structural productivity differences. When training intensity increases by one per cent, structural productivity increases by 0.3 per cent. Finally, it is shown that omitted variable bias plays a crucial role in the estimation of productivity effects of training.

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