Russians Named Europe’s Least Productive Workers

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 11, 2015)

The productivity of the Russian workforce is the lowest among European countries, according to a report issued Monday by the France-based international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.

In Russia, labor productivity – measured by the gross domestic product valued in U.S. dollars divided by the total number of hours worked by the country’s workforce – stood at 25.9 in 2014. This is the lowest rate among all the European countries, worse than even crisis-hit Greece where the productivity rate stood at 36.2.

Russia’s level of labor productivity is just over half the average European rate of 50. In the United States, the productivity level was 64 per hour last year, according to the OECD estimates. Luxembourg fared the best of all the surveyed countries with an estimated 95.9 per hour.

Last year the Russian government developed a four-year plan aimed at realizing an inaugural order of President Vladimir Putin to boost the labor productivity of Russians by 50 percent by 2018.

The measures include stimulating investment in production modernization, creating conditions for the professional development of employees, getting rid of inefficient jobs and increasing mobility in the labor market.