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CCNTV6
  • 10 months ago
The National Productivity Survey has been launched and is expected to benefit citizens and sectors across T&T. Many factors are to be considered, but one unionist questions if the right factors are considered.
Transcript
00:00The National Productivity Survey is about to be launched.
00:04This multipartite council, of which I'm also a member,
00:08has determined that in order to guide our work
00:11and allow for informed and evidence-based interventions,
00:15there is need for data, which is evidently lacking at this time.
00:20It is in this regard that a national survey on productivity has been proposed.
00:26The survey is intended to complement other initiatives of the Ministry of Labour.
00:31These include a study on the impact of the national minimum wage,
00:36conduct of vacancy surveys to obtain labour demand data,
00:40and research into child labour.
00:43It is evident that the conduct of the National Productivity Survey
00:46requires a collective effort, as is the case with our other ongoing research initiatives.
00:52From his professional background, Labour Minister Stephen McClatchy says
00:56the survey will only redound to the benefit of all citizens.
01:00When we did evaluations at certain places,
01:05we would always have to factor in productivity levels.
01:10And Trinidad and Tobago, if we were to bring an American firm,
01:15we would tag them at about 65% wrench time, which is hands-on,
01:20and a local firm, we would tag them at about 45%.
01:24Now that speaks in and of itself to productivity and more so to cost,
01:31more so also to timelines and the completion of contracts and jobs.
01:39The survey is to comprise many components,
01:42like support structures at work, work-life balance, and...
01:47workplace conditions and resources.
01:50So employees will be asked about the availability of critical resources,
01:55such as office supplies, equipment, support systems.
01:58Research has consistently shown that a lack of adequate resources
02:03will negatively impact productivity.
02:06So this section will help us analyse whether gaps exist across industries.
02:10But does it consider factors beyond the control of employees,
02:14unionist Joseph Ramey questions.
02:17I'm not seeing anything about the externalities
02:20that the employees have no control over.
02:23We have a lot of public servants and workers
02:26who come from San Fernando to work in Port of Spain every day
02:29because of the lack of decentralisation they talk about.
02:33And the traffic is horrendous.
02:36That has a definite impact on productivity.
02:39I've seen nothing get the capital data.
02:41The issues of, they talk about resources,
02:44but the issues of workers working on wages at 15 years old,
02:47how that impacts on productivity,
02:49I'm not seeing anything there that captures that.
02:52Surveyors will spend some two months on the field
02:55to capture data from 800 participants in Trinidad,
02:58200 in Tobago, and 3,000 to 5,000 online.
03:03Urvashi Tewari, Ruben Rai, TV6 News.
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