An expert behind the Productivity Commission’s 5-year review shares his recommendations for the Australian economy

Australia is a living testament to the benefits of productivity growth.

An average worker today puts in 14 fewer hours per week and takes home a real wage six times that of the average worker in 1901 — all because we are producing more per hour worked.

And yet in the past decade, that rate of improvement has slowed.

Over the 60 years to 2019-20, labour productivity (production per hour worked) grew at an average of 1.8% per year, which sounds small but compounds each year.

In the most recent of those decades, the decade to 2020, growth fell to just 1.1%