By Lee Hyo-sik
Staff Reporter
South Korean workers have long been known to be diligent and hard working, making a great contribution toward the Asian nation's emergence as one of the world's leading economies. They may stay late at the office and go to work on weekends to get more done, but their hard work does not seem to translate into improved labor productivity, which lags far behind their counterparts in other major world economies.
The Korea Productivity Center said Thursday that the nation's labor productivity, or value created by per worker, reached an average of $42,373 from 2000 through 2007, ranking 33rd among 131 countries across the globe.
Luxemburg topped the list as each worker produced goods and services worth $89,233, followed by the United States at $73,875 and Norway at $73,703.
In Asia, Singapore was the most labor-productive nation, ranking ninth, with its average worker generating $67,169 in annual value. Hong Kong came at 16th, followed by Macao (24th) and Japan (28th).
Among OECD member economies, only seven countries, including Mexico and Hungary, were behind Asia's fourth largest economy in per-capita labor output.
The center said Korea's labor productivity grew at an average rate of 5.8 percent in 1980s and then slowed to 4.5 percent in 1990s. Since 2000, the growth rate has fallen to below 4 percent.
``In the 1980s and 90s, Korea's labor productivity expanded at an explosive pace as manufacturing workers here used more machines and automated facilities to produce industrial goods in a cost-effective and efficient manner. In contrary, the lackluster labor efficiency in the services industry has been the main culprit behind Korea's poor productivity improvement,'' the center said, suggesting the nation not only make the labor sector more flexible, but also lift an entry barrier to various services sectors and promote competition.
The services industry was responsible for 56.2 percent of Korea's labor productivity growth from 1993 through 1997, the center said. But the ratio fell to 46.2 percent during the 2001 to 2007 period, while the manufacturing sector contributed to 46.6 percent of the productivity improvement, up from 30.4 percent.
The 46.2-percent contribution ratio is substantially lower than the United States' 99 percent and Japan's 73.9 percent.