Canada Must Do Better

More worrisome is that Canada’s productivity growth is the lowest it has been in five years. It has fallen from 9th place in national economic competitiveness to 16th in less than 10 years, according to the (not completely reliable) World Economic Forum, and has only 75% of U.S. business sector productivity. Canada’s output per worker is only 17th in the OECD. In the same period, Canada’s average productivity growth fell by about 60%. Secondary school graduation rates are about 5% below the OECD average, and there is too great a concentration for Canada’s economic good on university degrees in the social sciences and law, chronically unproductive occupations beyond a threshold this country surpassed long ago. Canadians work longer hours than the OECD average, so the problem is in organization, targeting and technical systems. These trends must not continue, and competitive pressures can normally be relied upon to end them. Canada’s peers appear to be more advanced in electronic commerce, but this should not be difficult to reverse.