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Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n AAA<\/p>\n Economists warn that Australia\u2019s productivity is lagging on the global stage, ranking second last among OECD countries, better only than Mexico.<\/p>\n Historically, we rate poorly in terms of remuneration, international experience, employee training, working hours and skilled labour. What this means is that, in the rankings of world competitiveness, Australia is well down the list.<\/p>\n Politicians are concerned, roundtables are being convened and economists are circulating papers to sound the alarm searching for a better way forward.<\/p>\n The Productivity Commission recently called<\/a> the nation\u2019s productivity growth disappointing, with labour productivity falling by 0.7 per cent in the December 2025 quarter, which sits well below long-term average growth.<\/p>\n Productivity Commission chair Danielle Wood warns that Australia\u2019s productivity growth has stalled since 2016. \u201cWe need to get productivity moving to ensure future generations can live better and more prosperous lives than those that came before them,\u201d Wood says.<\/p>\n \u201cNo single policy reform can bring productivity growth back to its long-term average \u2013 governments will have to make a lot of pro-productivity decisions that support and reinforce each other.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re measuring an industrial-age economy in a knowledge and care era.<\/p>\n Lauren Ryder, CEO of Leading Edge<\/p>\n Treasurer Jim Chalmers told the nation<\/a> that boosting productivity is central to this year\u2019s budget because it\u2019s the best way to lift wages and living standards. The budget was designed to reduce regulatory costs and make it easier to build, do business, invest and innovate.<\/p>\n But what if it\u2019s the metric used to measure productivity that is the problem?<\/p>\n While it\u2019s difficult to measure and difficult to fix, right now, productivity is often calculated as a ratio of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per total hours worked.<\/p>\n Editor’s pick It\u2019s complicated, but outputs and inputs, such as labour, capital and time, are converted into goods and services. Sluggish wage growth and taxes are also productivity factors.<\/p>\n But perhaps the measure itself may be the problem, suggests Lauren Ryder, chief executive of Leading Edge Global. The business management consultant believes the nation is operating in a new economy and the ruler used to measure productivity is broken.<\/p>\n \u201cThe productivity measures are going backwards, and it can\u2019t be explained, so we have to have a way to start talking about what we\u2019re actually producing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Ryder, of Sydney, points out that the economic centre of gravity has shifted dramatically, away from mining and manufacturing, which traditional productivity metrics were built to capture, towards services, care, education and public administration.<\/p>\n \u201cSo much of the economy is made up of service providers \u2013 such as professional services, nurses, educators and governments \u2013 and none of them can be measured,\u201d she says. Her research suggests that the ruler is broken for a new economy, meaning that labour outputs are harder to measure.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re measuring an industrial-age economy in a knowledge and care era. The gap between what we measure and what we produce is widening every year. That\u2019s not evidence of a lazier workforce. It\u2019s evidence of a broken ruler,\u201d Ryder says.<\/p>\n This has led her to coin the phrase \u201cphantom labour\u201d to describe the growing body of work in Australia\u2019s economy that is real, demanding and genuinely valuable, but structurally invisible to the productivity frameworks to measure it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe keep asking why Australian workers aren\u2019t more productive when we should be asking whether our definition of productivity is fit for the economy we actually have. Phantom labour is what happens when the work outgrows the framework used to value it.<\/p>\n \u201cThe work is happening. The value is real. The system just can\u2019t see it. The phenomenon is not new, but I believe it has become urgent that we find a better way to measure our productivity,\u201d Ryder says.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe Australia has a workforce that has stopped caring about performance. It has a measurement system that has stopped reflecting what performance looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n Get workplace news, advice and perspectives to help make your job work for you. Sign up for our weekly Thank God it\u2019s Monday newsletter.<\/a><\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n![\"Lauren](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6d45e2072756ef2342ad4990eddfee724d859650.jpeg\")
Lauren Ryder: \u201cWe keep asking why Australian workers aren\u2019t more productive when we should be asking whether our definition of productivity is fit.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Natalie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/235ea33c771ef46029ee53a86abd66af21a9019128cdb66a4bc0585d415cc74e.jpeg\")
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