engleski

International comparison of productivity in manufacturing and services with reference to sickness leaves

Labour productivity determines perspectives of a long term economic growth, while achieved level of productivity depends upon various factors such as: realized level of economic development, dominant economic structure and state of technological advance. Investigation of labour productivity is important for the EU because of recent economic crisis and relatively slow economic recovery, but also because of the existing development gap among its member states. This gap ultimately determines dynamics of productivity growth across constituent parts of the EU. This research includes cross-country comparison of labour productivity in traditional services sector (tourism and hospitality), while referring to both services sector and manufacturing sector productivity of the EU countries. This is the more important because of high labour content of services, including those which create high value added. In this context, absenteeism is an important variable with considerable impact on productivity. As a complex socio-economic construct absenteeism asks for special attention most notably in labour intensive services sector, due to its potentially high impact on business results, including productivity. Research results show that Croatia considerably lags behind the productivity level of the majority of other EU countries, while having relatively high productivity in tourism, as shown through international comparison. It has been also shown that Croatian tourism sector realizes better indicators of absenteeism what further adds to its productivity. The paper also indicates possible problems for further productivity growth in Croatian tourism which, together with low productivity level in industry, might endanger the general productivity level, as well as expected growth of Croatian economy.

labour productivity, services sector, tourism, sick leave, EU

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