Productivity of Brazilian workers
On
3rd October, the US consulting firm Conference Board released data from its study of 114 nations
regarding “worker productivity” where Brazil was ranked 68th. This study showed that in 2010 the average
Brazilian worker produced 1/5 of the wealth of an American worker, 1/3 of a
South Korean and ½ of an Argentine.
Compared with the other BRICs, between 2005 and 2010, the productivity
of the Brazilian worker increased by 2.1% per year, less than in China (9.8%),
India (5.8%) and Russia (3.2%).
Data from the US Bureau of Labor
Statistics demonstrate that between 2002 and 2008 the salaries of Brazilian
industrial workers increased by 174% and by 133% for those in China. Economists claim that this helps explain the
loss of competitiveness of Brazilian workers and the increase of inflation in
Brazil. When salaries increase more
rapidly than productivity, the prices of goods and services become more
expensive.
This ranking of worker productivity was
elaborated by the Conference Board by dividing the nation’s GDP by its work
force. Insper professor Naercio Menezes
points to the precarious status of education in Brazil as one factor, and
another factor is the low level on innovation of Brazilian businesses, because
these firms invest very little in the creation of new technologies. “Innovation allows firms to produce more with
the same number of employees. In 2010,
China registered 13,337 patents, while Brazil registered only 442. This shows our very low level of innovation”,
Menezes observed. University of Brasília
economics professor, Jorge Arbache, affirmed that “half of the Chinese
population still lives in rural areas where productivity is low. The productivity of the Chinese industrial
worker is higher than the Brazilian because Chinese industry migrated from low
productivity sectors (like textiles) to more sophisticated industrial products
like automobiles and computer chips”.
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