Productivity: What Is It? How Is It Measured? What Has Canada's Performance Been Over the Period 1961 to 2012?

This paper provides an overview of the productivity program at Statistics Canada and a brief description of Canada?s productivity performance. The paper defines productivity and the various measures that are used to investigate different aspects of productivity growth. It describes the difference between partial productivity measures (such as labour productivity) and a more complete measure (multifactor productivity) and the advantages and disadvantages of each. The paper explains why productivity is important. It outlines how productivity growth fits into the growth accounting framework and how this framework is used to examine the various sources of economic growth. The paper briefly discusses the challenges that face statisticians in measuring productivity growth. It also provides an overview of Canada?s long-term productivity performance and compares Canada to the United States?both in terms of productivity levels and productivity growth rates.