Summary

Productivity matters for wellbeing

• Achieving higher productivity improves our overall wellbeing, by increasing the nation’s incomes and our ability to produce and afford the goods and services that underpin a happy, healthy life.
• This allows us to invest in public goods and services that benefit everyone, such as schools, hospitals, and infrastructure.
• Improved productivity also enables us to enjoy more time with family, whānau, friends
and community, spend more on improved collective wellbeing, and pursue social and environmental goals.
• The distribution – across and within groups and communities around the rohe – of the gains from higher productivity also matters for individual and overall wellbeing.

Productivity requires a long-term commitment and innovation and investment are key

• Aotearoa New Zealand’s current productivity is built on decades of investment – in skills, knowledge, ICT, infrastructure, relationships, and the environment.
• Improving productivity requires efforts (investments) to maintain, enhance and improve the capabilities and qualities of the range of productive factors, institutional arrangements, and resources on our watch.
• Innovation and technological change are critical to productivity growth.
• The Government’s efforts need to be focused, aligned, well connected to businesses, iwi, Māori, researchers, and workers, and well evaluated, to enable learning and adaption.

Explore the numbers for yourself with our visualisation tool:
https://nzpc.shinyapps.io/pbtn23/