Productivity in Services

The service industries—that is, ali activities apart from agriculture and the production and construction industries—account for more than half of gross domestic product and employ about two thirds of the civilian labour force. The size of the employed labour force alone makes a brief analysis of productivity worthwhile; additional interest stems from the impor tance of the contribution of the internationally trade able services to the balance of payments. This note describes calculations of productivity changes in various service industries in the ten years to 1984. The calculations are based on the measures of output in the national accounts, and should be considered in the light of the assumptions which underlie these measures.