If quality of life can’t be factored into “productivity”, then it’s a failed system designed only to benefit a minority of people who are becoming excessively wealthy off the work of others.
From an employer’s perspective, the main factor influencing productivity is the number of hours worked.
This isn’t the 1800s. When you look at the studies, where people are given a human-focused work schedule (i.e. fewer hours) with ample time to rest and recover (i.e. more time off), their productivity goes up.
The fact that we’re seeing productivity go down is a symptom of how workers are treated, their lack of compensation for the time they take away from their family, and the burden on their health that working non-stop causes.
That is a growing debate in economics, or so I read it is.
What stood out to me in this article was:
The OECD paper also found a link between productivity decline and stagnating human capital development. Since 2003, young citizens of OECD countries have underperformed on standardized tests in science, math and reading.
This is why we need strong provincial policies supporting our youth, and this is something that the next 10 years I think will punish us and the US especially hard on.
Without educating and motivating our kids, we don’t have a strong economic future. Immigrants are kind of a bandaid, our youth (and the children of these immigrants) need to be engaged and motivated and educated to become efficient productive.
Fear not, in Ontario the Conservative government is slashing and burning education into the ground and making it worse for all students.
Oh sorry, you said we needed to invest in our kids futures via education. My bad.
This is partially what motivated me to post.
It is so frustrating seeing my nieces and nephews in huge ineffective classes where they check out and lose interest in the subjects they used to love.
I want kids to see the world as a place where motivation and cleverness meant you could do and be anything you wanted. It hurts my heart seeing them fall behind and feeling hopeless.
This election the conservatives have really bothered me by not even bothering campaigning.
Agreed, you look at how places in Asia treat the importance of education compared to how North America does and it isn’t a surprise how we are falling behind all over the place. Not to say there aren’t plenty of issues with how their education systems work, but with the status quo we are essentially throwing away any advantage we have over the East.
You can center workers, defense, or social safety net. Pick two.
Why pick two?
If you haven’t figured that out already, you will
Respectfully centering workers is the social safety net.
I don’t even consider it a safety net, education and health are the foundation of the workforce.
It’s a loss in productivity when someone can’t work because they need but can’t access dental care, glasses, mental health care, or out of reach pharmaceuticals. Those should be solved problems stuck behind arbitrary barriers.
It’s a loss of productivity every time a brilliant mind is stuck selling real egg sandwiches at Tim’s or can’t get employed due to education costs.
If we take care of those foundations then people are free to contribute to their fullest.
