THE Ministry of Labour and Social Security is in the process of publishing the first ever national productivity statistics from various sectors of the Zambian economy, acting director at the National Productivity Development Department Cyprian Mayamba has said.
Productivity refers to the process of converting resources or imputs into products and services or outputs efficiently, effectively and with optimum utilisation of human capital and physical resources for the benefit of society, the economy and the environment.
Mr Mayamba said the statistics, which would indicate productivity levels industry by industry, would cover the period 2008 to 2015.
He was speaking in Livingstone at Fairmont Hotel on Wednesday in his his presentation to delegates at the 2015 Livingstone Kaizen sensitisation.
Kaizen is a Japanese word which literally means “change for better” while it is regarded to mean “small step and continuous improvement” in the business world.
More than 40 members of the business comunity and other stakeholders at ended the meeting which was hosted by the Livingstone Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) and Kaizen Institute of Zambia (KIZ).
“As a Department, right now we are in the process of publishing the first ever national productivity statistics which ranges from 2008 to 2013.
“These statistics are based on national budgets and they do indicate productivity levels for industry by industry,” Mr Mayamba said.
He said the reasons for measuring productivity included identifying opportunities for improvement and tracking productivity levels over time.
Other reasons are to provide an objective basis for incentive awards and gains sharing allocations as well as to provide basis for Planing and control processes and finally to indicate how much improvement is achieved.
Mr Mayamba said productivity measurement techniquesincluded value added productivity measurement, indexing method and benchmarking.
“We need to measure productivity so that we promote an improvement in the industries and other work places.
“As a saying goes, what cannot be measured cannot be improved,” he said.
A good idea, but a bad starting point. Why do I say so? Because most of the raw data government will base its calculations on is erroneous. They could have started by ensuring that factual information is obtained first.
Are u already aware of the data they will use? Are u also sure that the issue u are raising has not been considered in the method used?
..ministry of labour really lack priorities….how do they start climbing a tree from the branches….what we need first are real unemployment statistics…..a collective number and a breakdown according to trade disciplines…how many engineers, teachers, accountants, etc and those without any trade looking for employment at any given time…..at the moment there is just an assumptions of the unemployment levels…not measured….if I go by the last statement…’that which cannot be measured is difficult to improve..’…