The renowned magazine The Economist has made harsh criticism of the low productivity of Brazilian last week and provoked mixed reactions. But does the article "The 50-year snooze" talk correct about Brazil?
Of course nobody likes that someone points the finger in your face and speak about your deficiencies! If we stop to think about some statistic data and look around the reality and the contrast, we will see many truth things.
Some specialists mention there are a few aspects that we should highlight and take apart:
- The first is the "physical capital": The workers are more productive when they have better infrastructure, best machines and tools. A truck driver in the U.S. to make ten trips per month transporting soybeans, while a Brazilian makes only three. We don't need to think too much to conclude that Brazilians have lower trucks, travel through the worst roads and spend many days in queues of ports.
- The second is natural resources: a country with poor natural resources such as soil fertility, mineral reserves, rivers and climate - certainly it will contribute to break the growth of the country; Again, definitely this is not Brazil's reality where most of the cultivable areas whatever we sow, we reap.
- The third is the "human capital": This means the level of education, training and technical skills of workers. No need to highlight that Brazil is far from developed countries, when we see researches such as Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) ranking the country in last positions. Also another research from Varkey GEMS called Global Teacher Status Index giving the last position to the country when related to the value of its teachers.
- The fourth factor and not last, technological knowledge: When compared with the U.S., the Brazilian worker operates inferior technologies, exceptions of sectors with technical excellence. In this analysis the private sector and the public sector are included, and as it is well known that the Brazilian public health system is inefficient, its contribution to the low productivity is quite large.
However there are a few more negative points that contribute to this status - heavy tax burden, slow judiciary system, high corruption and bad laws - also contribute to low productivity. Certainly, we don't like to see articles like The Economist made about us, but we can think over and see if we should accept it or act as soon as possible, the #Eleições2014 are around the corner.
Curious to read the full article from The Economist? Check this out:
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21600983-brazilian-workers-are-gloriously-unproductive-economy-grow-they-must-snap-out
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