去年全球生產率僅增長2.1%
Output per worker grew last year at its slowest rate since the millennium, with a slowdown evident in almost all regions, underscoring how the problem of lower productivity growth is taking on global proportions.
工人的人均產出增速去年創下本世紀以來的最低水平，幾乎所有地區的生產率增速都明顯下降，突顯出生產率增長下降正成爲世界性問題。The Conference Board, a think-tank, said official data on output and employment from most countries showed that only India and sub-Saharan Africa enjoyed faster labour productivity growth last year.
智庫大企業聯合會(The Conference Board)表示，大多數國家的產出和就業數據表明，去年只有印度和撒哈拉以南的非洲地區的勞動生產率增速有所加快。
Globally, the rate of growth decelerated to 2.1 per cent in 2014, compared with an annual average of 2.6 per cent between 1999 and 2006, it said.
該智庫表示，就全球而言，2014年勞動生產率增速降至2.1%，相比之下，從1999年到2006年的年度平均增速爲2.6%。
Bart van Ark, the Conference Board’s chief economist, said total factor productivity, which takes account of skill levels and investment as well as the number of workers, fell 0.2 per cent in 2014. “This is a global phenomenon and so we have to take it very seriously,” he said.
大企業聯合會的首席經濟學家巴特•範阿克(Bart van Ark)表示，計入技能水平、投資以及工人數量的全要素生產率在2014年下降0.2%。他說：“這是全球現象，因此我們非常認真地對待這一問題。”Economists now identify the problem of low productivity as one of the great threats to improved living standards, in rich and poor countries alike.
經濟學家們現在將生產率低下問題確認爲提高生活水平的一大威脅，窮國和富國均是如此。The fact that companies have become less efficient at converting labour, buildings and machines into goods and services is beginning to trouble policy makers.
企業將勞動力、建築物和機器轉化爲商品和服務的效率下降，這一事實開始讓政策制定者感到頭疼。Janet Yellen, US Federal Reserve chairwoman, cited weak US productivity as a cause of “the tepid pace of wage gains in recent years” on Friday. Also last week, George Osborne, UK finance minister, set higher productivity as the most important economic priority for the new government.
上週五，美聯儲(Fed)主席珍妮特•耶倫(Janet Yellen)認爲美國生產率疲弱是“近幾年薪資增長緩慢”的原因。同樣在上週，英國財政大臣喬治•奧斯本(George Osborne)將提高生產率列爲新政府最重要的經濟工作重點。
