Productivity: meaning, measurement & improvement

In this lesson we meet a word that businesses and governments talk about all the time: productivity. Productivity is output per worker — how much each worker produces — and we are careful to see how it differs from production, which is total output. We learn to measure it with a simple sum, then explore all the ways a firm can improve it, from training to better machines to a healthy, motivated workforce. Finally we look at two forces that pull in opposite directions in Namibia today: Information Technology, which can lift productivity, and HIV and AIDS, which can lower it.