Brussels, 01/12/2003 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 27 November, the European Commission published the Competitiveness Report 2003, examining growth, productivity and employment, enterprise reorganisation and productivity growth, regional aspects of competitiveness, and enlargement and competitiveness of manufacturing. It looks at hourly productivity as well as productivity per person employed. The main conclusion is that in order to improve standards of living, the EU needs to boost productivity and employment growth rates.
A press release comments that the decline in hours worked per person in the EU, together with the virtual stagnation in total hours worked over the past thirty years and the recent slowdown in productivity growth, are not consistent with expectations of a rapidly improving standard of living. The cumulative US-EU difference in productivity growth in 1995-2002 is 9 percentage points when measured by person employed and 4.5 points when measured by hours worked.
The report finds that firms that achieve high productivity growth are those that combine organisational improvements with investment in new technologies, and particularly in information and communication technologies (ICT). ICT has contributed more to productivity growth in the US than in the EU, which relies more heavily on investment in traditional types of capital. The report examines the competitiveness of EU accession countries and discusses the likely impact of enlargement on economic structures in a ! wider European Union. A detailed picture of productivity, job-creation, and innovation performance are provided by the annual enterprise and innovation scoreboards.
Info: http: //europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/ enterprise_policy/>competitiveness/index.htm