Why aren’t Australians working harder?

The slump in the annual rate of productivity growth to a 22-year low of -1.0% in the fourth quarter suggests that Australian’s aren’t working very hard and that this will damage their prosperity in the long-run. But while we believe that economic growth will fall short of most people’s expectations this year and next, we are fairly optimistic on the outlook over the next decade. In fact, it probably won’t be long before Australia is once again consistently growing at a faster rate than most of its peers.