Skip to main content

Home/ IB Economics SL LG/ Group items tagged labour productivity

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Jina K

Singapore's labour productivity drops 2.6 per cent in 2012 - 0 views

  •  
    Singapore's labour productivity- defined as average output per period of time- fell by 2.6 percent in 2012. This includes the manufacture sector, construction sector, and service sector. Only the information and communicators sector show a positive increase. Labour productivity has been decreasing continuously. In the fourth quater of last year, labour productivity fell by 2.5 percent, which is the fifth consecutive quater showing a decline. The numbers attribute to the slower economic growth in the past two years. The government has been trying to increase productivity in certain sectors that see the most potential increase. Not only that, nominal wages- wages not yet adjusted for inflation- shows a 2.3 percent increase. Unemployment rate is 2%. The article can be related to aggregate supply. If labour productivity sees a decrease, it is likely that aggregate supply falls as well since labour is one of the factor of production. If the country sees a fall in its output then this suggests a decrease in the growth of the economy or may even reflect in the country's GDP value. Not only that, an increase in wages will also increase firms' cost of production, and therefore contribute to a fall in aggregate supply. However, on a good note, its unemployment rate is at 2%, which is considered as quite a good rate. This may suggest a quite full working capacity of the economy.
ZhengYe J

Heat stress hits labour productivity - 1 views

  •  
    This article shows how the environment can influence the aggregate supply in the economy. The article states that heat stress from global warming may be having an impact on outdoor work productivity in hot regions like northern Australia, Southeast Asia and the southern US. And the calculation tells us thatin temperate regions, people work continuously, but in the hottest places, the working day is split between 80% work and 20% rest. Therefore, people and government should pay attention to the environment problems nowadays because it will lead to a change in nation's GDP. And economists also should consider environment as a determinant of aggregate supply.
  •  
    This article talks about how global warming is causing a decrease in work productivity, which would lead to a decrease in production. It states that in the hottest months of the year, labour capacity decreases by around 10%. They estimate that by 2050 the temperature would have risen by 1.8 degrees. At this temperature labour capacity would decrease by 20%. So overall this could have huge effects on the economy as production will decrease, and therefore there will be over aggregate demand. this then would cause inflation.
Andrzej Z

Poland cuts interest rates as growth, inflation slow - 0 views

  •  
    It is a nice article about the central bank in my country Poland. The central bank in poland uses changes in interest rates to keep the inflation rate within the targeted range of 2.5% plus or minus 1%. This week the central bank has reduced the key rate by 25 basis points to 3 percent. As we know, a decrease in inflation will lead to the increase in consumption and investment. The consumption is the total spending of consumers in domestic products. With lower interest rates, consumers will borrow more money from the bank and they will spend more, so the AD curve will shift to the right. Investment is defined as the addition of capital stock to the economy. Lower interest rates will encourage the producers to spend more on investment. Another thing to take into consideration is that the decrease in inflation will make the exports from Poland more competitive in foreign countries where the inflation rate is much higher. Targeting inflation, whether explicitly or implicitly, is said to be beneficial as it results in a reduction in inflationary expectations. If the workers do not expect higher inflation then they will not make demands for increases in wages any higher than the expected rate of inflation and this will keep the costs of labour from rising excessively. Poland has enjoyed uninterrupted annual growth for the past two decades, and for a while after the financial crisis of 2008/9 the economy continued to defy the global downturn. However last year gross domestic product growth slowed to about two percent, less than half the pace in 2011, as infrastructure spending tailed off and the gloom from the euro zone started to filter through to previously bullish Polish consumers.
Benjamin D

Africa's hopeful economies The sun shines bright - 0 views

  •  
    This article talks about the economic growth that is occuring in many African countries, this is probably the region with the highest growth of the world. In the past and still now Africa has been the region with the highest inequalities and the one with the highest poverty rates, however, due to its productivity more and more people are becoming weathier and even a middle class is starting to emerge. Furthermore, economic growth doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is being benefitted, the majority of this continent lives below poverty levels, and live under disease and hunger. The Economist had labelled Africa "the hopeless continent" a decade ago, a profound change has taken hold. Labour productivity has been rising. It is now growing by, on average, 2.7% a year. Trade between Africa and the rest of the world has increased by 200% since 2000. Inflation dropped from 22% in the 1990s to 8% in the past decade.
1 - 4 of 4
Showing 20 items per page