Treasurer Jim Chalmers says Australia has a productivity problem trends now
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Treasurer Jim Chalmers is warning Australians will have to work longer hours and be paid 40 per cent less than they should be unless workforce productivity improves.
While unemployment is low by historic standards, economic output is significantly weaker than the high point of the 1990s, and remains well below the average since the 1960s.
A Productivity Commission report, to be publicly released on Friday, predicts that the worst productivity growth in 60 years will see Australians working longer hours but be denied decent pay rises.
Drawing from that report, Dr Chalmers said full-time workers already doing 40-hour weeks would have to work an additional two hours just to get the work done if productivity remained well below the six-decade average.
'Australia has a productivity problem,' he said.
'If we stay stuck on the current course, the PC projects future incomes will be 40 per cent lower and the working week 5 per cent longer.'
Treasurer Jim Chalmers is warning Australians will have to work longer hours and be paid 40 per cent less than they should be unless workforce productivity improves
Australia's productivity growth during the past decade averaged just 1.1 per cent a year, which was the slowest increase in 60 years and well below the six-decade average of 1.8 per cent.
This was also significantly weaker than the 3 per cent average, annual pace from the late 1980s to the early 2000s, when microeconomic reform improved competition within the economy.
Dr Chalmers argued national income growth, for every individual, would have been $4,600 higher in 2020 if productivity had kept pace with the 60-year average.
He pointed out Australian productivity was 22 per cent weaker than the United States.
Australia went from being the OECD's sixth most productive nation in 1970 to the 16th by 2020, despite a
