NZ skills up, education increasing, but productivity needs to improve

Though New Zealanders' skill levels are improving and educational attainment is increasing, improvements are not reflected in labour productivity, according to a recent report.

Skill levels have been improving, but only just keeping pace with the rest of the OECD since the early 1990s. Educational attainment is increasing and expected years in education are above the OECD median.

Although labour productivity has been growing faster since 1998 it is still at the lower end of the OECD and is about 20 percent below that of Australia or the United Kingdom.

The education figures are in a new report looking at New Zealand's economic development indicators put out by the Ministry of Economic Development.

According to the Ministry, New Zealand also has the highest number of hours of continuing education and training per adult. On average, New Zealand adults spend approximately 135 hours annually in continuing education and training, and 113 hours in job-related education and training.

Hours of continuing education and training per adult 1994 -1998

From 1994 to 1998 the participation rate in New Zealand was 47.5 percent for all continuing education and training, and 40.8 percent for job-related education training, the third or fourth highest in OECD countries.

The report argues that these factors are, by themselves, not sufficient to effectively lift labour productivity.

Training programmes should be designed to provide skills needed in the labour market. The report also shows:

• New Zealand is below the OECD median for adult literacy.
• The rate of school leavers with no qualifications has stayed relatively constant since 1990 at around 15 percent.
• Despite encouraging increases, research and development remains low by OECD standards.

The report is at this web page.