Collection: Industrial Pact Working Papers
The relationship between productivity and quality of work is as complex as the definitions of the terms “productivity” and “quality of work” themselves. This document estimates and examines the evolution of productivity, with an emphasis on the total productivity of the factors for five specific sectors (agri-food, chemical-pharmaceutical, metal-mechanical, commercial and tourism, and ICT and advanced services) of the economy of the Barcelona Metropolitan Region (BMR) during the period of economic recovery between 2015 and 2019. Within the context of the known difficulties faced by the Catalan and Spanish economies in generating real increases in productivity, for the BMR the study has identified strong performance and increased importance on the part of the metal-mechanical, commercial and tourism and, in particular, the ICT and advanced services sectors with regard to Catalonia. No common explanatory variables – linked to quality of work and related to improved productivity – have been found for all of the sectors; consequently, it is only on a sectoral basis that we can explain the complex and not always apparent impact of factors such as stock, capital structure, company age, employment income as a proportion of added value, changes in training levels, and the evolution of part-time and temporary work.