The productivity of a country says nothing about the quality of work One of the big lies and in turn the great mantras with which we have been grinding politicians, journalists and economists in recent years is the problem of low productivity. Retorticeramente formulated as follows:
Spain has lower productivity than in Germany, which means we work worse.
is a great fallacy, because the productivity of a country that does not measure, however comes in handy to distribute blame.
a country's productivity is calculated very easily: GDP / employed workers. There.
When political figures are compared with Germany and they are comparing these ratios are so simple, and dress have no involvement, relate them to how well they work in companies.
GDP fall in the many factors that have nothing to do whatsoever with the production of the active population, which valuation and is biased, but even if we assume that GDP and workers produce, the conclusion continues to be wrong.
one hand we have the GDP, which is a quantity that is measured in Euros. It's money. It would be logical to relate it to another measured quantity of money, as is the cost of the worker and not the number of workers. Because things that produce cost in terms of capital, and that is closely linked to disposable income.
Let's take a simple example. German bread factory produces 1000 bars a day with a single worker. The English bread factory produces 2000 bar with a single worker. What is the most productive?
I'd say the English worker works better than the German. But if we make the calculation of productivity based on prices (such as GDP) is that we can give anything else. If the German factory sells the bars and the English € 2 to € 0.50, it seems that German productivity increased 2 x € 1000 = 2000 €, with one worker. The English however, it has a productivity of 0.5 x 2000 € = 1000 €. Half the German!
Another issue that absolutely undermines the productivity calculation is completely ignoring wages. For a company is just as productive to have a worker two half charge, however for the calculation of productivity, it seems that is twice as costly, unproductive.
The other great evil of calculating productivity so childish, is comparing apples and oranges.
With a country producing loaves of bread and other too, still have something comparable. But with one producing electricity and the other cutters, the comparison makes no sense. If the German worker working at a power plant, no need for more than fifty to produce worth millions of euros. While the English worker (or rather the worker in Spain) is picking strawberries, and it takes hundreds to produce thousands of euros.
The productivity calculation in this case tells us that German workers are more productive, but it looks like, does not mean that the German worker sitting in front of the monitor is very diligent in comparison with the English who spends hours folding spine.
No, the English workers are not lazy (and if you are sure that this indicator does not measure), and low productivity has to do with what little curran. Has only to do with what is produced in Germany and what is produced in Spain. Has only to do with the standard of living in Germany and Spain.
The great paradox of productivity in Spain is that in the current crisis has increased considerably, because despite the fall in GDP, with increased unemployment, as productivity increases! . Especially since many of the jobs lost corresponds to labor-intensive production such as construction.
If the great mantra of recent years is that we had to increase productivity, we have already done. Where is the comparison with Germany promised us? Can not exist. It was all a scam. Another.
PD: There are certain entities that instead of taking the GDP per active workers they do taking the GDP per capita, which is even worse. In this case, and not to dwell, it is easy to realize that if you increase the birth rate decreases productivity, just as if unemployment increases, and it has no relationship whatsoever with the quality of work being performed.
