Emerging economy that has a low labor productivity Essay

Emerging economy that has a low labor productivity - Essay Example There are many ways one can use to measure labor productivity. These range from the infrastructural capital, advanced technology through human capital. This paper is however concerned with human capital which is crucial in determining the productivity of the labor forces. The term labor productivity may be understood in the context of the total output per employee within a set timeframe. For instance, we can say the total production for every worker per day or per hour. As said before, some factors determine the productivity of the labor forces. Initially, Brazil has been growing economically since its independence. Brazil had hit a high output for every worker in early years of between 1960 and 1970s. In the years that followed from 1990 to early 2013, the production per workers contributed to over forty percent of its GDP. However, the trend is not the same in current years as there are factors that are contributing to its continued low labor productivity. Factors such as poor company management have been blamed for the current low productivity in Brazil (Baer, 2001). Despite most of the corporations in Brazil being well run, they are not managed efficiently leading to reduced productivity. Another factor is high taxes that make it hard for companies to employ a good number of trained and skilled employees. As a result, business owners resort to hiring less-qualified relatives at the expense of running their firms with well trained and adequately skilled personnel. This significantly affects labor productivity as poor skills cannot efficiently produce a great part of the total expected output. One of the motives for employing unqualified family members and relatives is to reduce the possibility of being sued for lack of the observance of labor laws (Baer, 2001). Further, other than the preceding, companies are protected by the government making it hard to face