India needs 6.3% labour productivity growth to attain 8% hike in GDP, but this looks unlikely in near term: Ind-Ra

New Delhi: India Ratings and Research on Thursday said that the country will have to increase its labour productivity growth to 6.3 percent to attain 8 percent economic growth. The labour productivity growth in FY19 was 5.2 percent. “India will have to raise its labour productivity growth to 6.3 percent to achieve 8 percent GDP growth. And to attain nine percent growth, labour productivity growth will have to be raised to 7.3 percent,” India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said in a statement. This is 40.4 percent higher than the level attained in FY19, it said. [caption id=“attachment_4364099” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] Given the growth slowdown, this looks unlikely in the near term, but is not an insurmountable task, according to Ind-Ra. “Such levels of labour productivity growth have been achieved in the past…India’s labour productivity growth, like other nations, came under pressure in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, especially during FY11-FY15,” it said. However, it recovered thereafter and grew at 5.8 percent during FY16-FY19, it added. The challenge on the productivity front for India is two-fold, it said. “First, how to raise the overall labour productivity to a level that delivers the required GDP growth rate, and secondly how to lift the labour productivity in the lagging sectors so that growth is more evenly balanced and sustainable over the medium- to long-term.” Sectors such as manufacturing, electricity, gas, water supply, transport, storage and communications “contributed significantly to the overall labour productivity during FY00-FY16”. The sectors that lagged are construction, agriculture and mining.