EMPLOYMENT IN THE MARKET ECONOMY IN ... - Eurostat - Europa

Chapter 1— Employment and value-added
7 Value-added per hour worked in the three broad manufacturing activities, 2001
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
EUR
285
Basic manufacturing
Chemicals, fuel
Engineering
BG RO LT LV EE SK CZ HU CY PT MT ES SE FR IT UK NL DK AT DE BE FI IE
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
EL, LU, PL, SI: n.a. ; IE, AT, BG, EE, LT, LV, MT, SK: Chemicals only. IE: NACE DN excl. ; EE, LT, LV: NACE DC excl.
Source: Eurostat, SBS, LCS
than in the rest of the EU15 (Graph 5). The extent of the difference
in labour productivity across the enlarged Union
is, therefore, substantial, ranging from over 30 euros in a
number of the EU15 countries and close to 50 euros in
Belgium to only 4 euros in Lithuania. In Bulgaria and Romania,
it was around half of this (Graph 6 and Table 7).
These differences, however, overstate the true difference
to the extent that they take no account of differences in
price level between countries, which are considerable
(prices for equivalent goods and services in the new
Member States tend to be less than half of those in the
EU15). Ideally, therefore, the comparisons ought to allow
for this, though no official estimates of purchasing power
parities are available for manufacturing to enable it to be
done. But even if such an adjustment were made, the gap
would remain very wide (as indicated by the purchasing
power parity figures for GDP as a whole).
Within manufacturing, productivity was high in Chemicals
and fuel and, in most cases, relatively low in basic manufacturing
(Graph 7).
Labour productivity and investment
The data on investment in the SBS can be used to give
an indication of the capital used in the production process
in different sectors of activity, even if it measures
the ‘flow’ of expenditure in the year rather than the accumulated
stock of plant, equipment and buildings
(see Box on this page). Relating investment to the esti-
Investment per hour worked in industry
The investment figures analysed in the text relate to expenditure
in gross terms (ie before deducting any sales
or making any adjustments for value) on ‘tangible’
goods, which cover purchases of machinery and equipment
and of land and buildings as well as the construction
and alterations of the latter. In all Member States,
purchases of machinery and equipment represent the
bulk of investment (around 85% of the total on average),
while the construction and alteration of buildings accounts
for most of the remainder. The figures, it should
be noted, cover only physical investment and not less
tangible investment such as in R&D or work force skills.
The figures for investment are divided by the estimates of
total hours worked to obtain a figure for capital expenditure
per unit of labour input which can be compared with
value-added per hour worked, or labour productivity. Although,
investment per hour worked relates only to expenditure
in a particular year and does not necessarily
reflect the total amount of capital (buildings as well as
machinery and equipment) available for use in the production
process, it may be indicative of this, to the extent
that capital-intensive industries (ie those which use a
large amount of capital relative to labour in production)
tend to invest relatively large amounts each year.
19