The “P” Word
Dec 6th, 2010 by kevinhung
According to a report on the Canadian Statistics site, Canadian GDP dropped 2.9% in 2009. With China’s GDP continuing to fly like a rocket, the Canadian figure should be setting off an alarm bell to the parliament. Why is that? Could it have something to do with the Nation aversion to discussing the “p” word (productivity). Until Canadian overcomes their squeamishness on these issues, we are not going to get our hand around the throat of this productivity dragon.
In December 2005, when the liberal government was preparing a pre-election mini budget, the finance minister hired the polling company Decima Research to discover which words should be avoided when explaining government’s economic objective. By far the most offending word is productivity. This is bad news because as Canada’s population ages and the available workforce shrinks, only two factors can possibly keep up with the need to fund the nation’s social safety net – productivity and sky high prices for our natural resources. This was not a simple telephone pole a series of ten focus group section held in the major cities. The groups loved the words prosperity, growth and innovation. They hated the word productivity and as a result minister Goodale switched to the only “p” word that will pass muster – “prosperity”. He decided that “rates and ratios” and “obscure statistics” were to be avoided. (Vancouver Sun December 2007 “Productivity a negative word”)
Currently on Statistics Canada website reports that Canada’s GDP declined 2.9% in 2009. The wikipage “Comparison of Canadian and American economies”, has something to say on this issue although the information is dated. “Canadian workers are estimated to be 82% as productive per hour as their American counterparts”. It further says Canadians are more productivity in construction and natural resource sectors.
The CGA association defines productivity as “the efficiency with which goods or services are produced by a given set of inputs, such as capital, raw materials and labour”. They list six key factors that are causing decline in our worker’s productivity. None of them had anything to do with employee initiative, motivation, or work ethic. The employee is rendered blameless just as he was when minister Goodale was working to craft the message that would hoodwink the Canadian voters.