By Emeka Anaeto, Economy Editor,

LAGOS— Nigeria’s labour productivity witnessed a significant drop in fourth quarter 2015 to N706.95 per worker per hour, down by about 8.0 per cent from N768.42 in third quarter.

Kachikwu

Labour productivity report by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, also indicated that the fourth quarter 2015 decline was the first of such decline quarter-on-quarter in 2015 and in the five-year trend analysis.

However, the five-year trend report also shows that overall productivity had increased in 2015 to N718.14, about 12.2 per cent, against N639.34 in 2014.

Moreover, labour productivity rose from about N471.94 in 2011 to N718.14 in 2015, which represents a 52.5 per cent increase over the five-year period

According to NBS, “the decline in labour productivity in Q4, 2015, could be attributed to several factors, such as the prevalent petrol scarcity, low investment, low government spending, and the decline in power generation during the period.

“A combination of these factors contributed to the lower utilisation of available labour capacity recorded during the quarter.”

However, the report indicated that the number of working hours recorded a quantum leap to 36.7 billion hours from 31.6 billion hours, a massive 15.9 per cent increase, as against just 1.2 per cent increase recorded in the previous quarter.

The increases were coming against 6.6 per cent increase in nominal Gross Domestic Product, GDP, against 6.4 per cent recorded in third quarter.

NBS remarked that though among the key measures of the well-being of an economy, is the level and growth of economic output, commonly known as the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), economists and policy makers are also interested in the factors of production that are used in generating such output, as well as the level of efficiency associated with those inputs.

“The productivity of inputs, for example, capital and labour, used in the production process is an important indicator of the relationship between overall economic output and other aspects of the economy, such as the labour market, the money market and the capital market,” NBS stated.