EU industrial structure - EU Bookshop - Europa

The relationship between productivity growth and
changes over time in prices is shown below. There is
a negative relationship, implying that relatively high rates
of productivity growth are negatively related to changes
in relative prices. The high rate of labour productivity
growth experienced in the industrial sector has resulted
Chapter III — Drivers of Sector Growth and Competitiveness
in moderate evolution of the relative price of industry
output via, among other channels, its impact on ULC. These
developments suggest that the industry sector has been
able to provide the economy with relatively cheap (and
high quality) inputs, thus contributing to overall economic
growth and competitiveness, cf. Figure III.8.
FIgURE III.8: Labour productivity growth vs changes in relative prices in 1995-2009
Change in relative prices
3.5
3.0
2.5
1.5
1.0
0.5
0.0
Construction
Non-market services
2.0 Financial intermediation and business services
Wholesale and retail trade
Industry
-0.5
Agriculture, forestry
and fishing
-1.0
-0.4 -0.2 -0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
Note: Annual average percentage changes.
Source: own calculations using Eurostat data.
iii21 labour productivity
Labour productivity is analysed at different levels of
aggregation in this section, beginning with an overall view
of labour productivity growth for the main sectors of the
economy in 1995‑2009. Value added and employment
is used in the calculation of labour productivity growth
for all sectors in the economy. A more detailed sectoral
classification, but limited to manufacturing, is used later to
study labour productivity growth which is calculated using
Labour productivity growth
production. This part will be used as basis for calculating
unit labour costs in the next section.
The effects of the latest crisis show in moderate growth
rates across sectors. EU labour productivity growth in 1995‑
2009 was higher than 3 % in only a few sectors. It grew by
between 3.2 % and 5.2 % in the sectors producing electrical
and optical equipment, chemicals and agriculture, hunting
and forestry, cf. Figure III.9.
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