Firm productivity growth and skill presentation

Motu Economic and Public Policy Research and Productivity Hub agencies (Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, Productivity Commission, Statistics New Zealand and Treasury) are working together to use the LBD to better understand New Zealand’s productivity and to improve policy. We invite you to attend a research seminar on a forthcoming paper titled Firm productivity growth and skill.

The paper, by Dave Maré, Dean Hyslop and Richard Fabling examines the relationship between firm multifactor productivity growth and changing skill levels of labour in New Zealand, over the period 2001-12, using longitudinal data from Statistics New Zealand’s LBD and Integrated Data Infrastructure. They find that employment growth drew in workers with lower-than-average skills, offsetting the skill growth from rising workforce qualifications and experience. Furthermore, they find that adjustment to the changing supply of skills occurred almost entirely within continuing firms.