Productivity

Spain faces two problems hindering its per capita income convergence toward the EU level: unemployment and low productivity growth.

Reducing the work week is laudable, but how we go about it is key to achieving the desired effects. Collective bargaining is the ideal instrument to adapt the needs of companies and workers to each business and sectoral reality, in an effective and flexible manner.

In this edition of the QLMO, we analyze the labor market situation with data available up to the first quarter of 2024. We review the trends of the main indicators, examine the differences between the Labor Force Survey and administrative records, and highlight Spain's productivity deficit.

Evidence shows that permanent improvements in productivity lead to a gradual reduction in hours worked per employee. In contrast, reversing this order of causality hinders employment growth.

Large Language Models have revolutionized the Artificial Intelligence (AI) landscape since they were first developed in 2017 when a group of Google researchers wrote their now famous "Attention is all you need".

The growth of the Colombian economy was exceptionally low in 2023, registering at 0.6%. The primary culprit for this outcome was the steep decline in investment. Concerns extend beyond the short term, as the low investment rates will constrain the future productive capacity of the economy and curtail its competitiveness.