Author:

Sergey Yu. Glazyev, the Standing Committee of the Union State, Moscow, Russia

Oleg S. Sukharev, Institute of Economics of the RAS, Moscow, Russia

Abstract:

In the design of the socioeconomic policy measures for the development of the modern Russian economy, labour productivity has become one of the main targets, along with ensuring economic growth and reducing inflation. The Labour Productivity national project involves the allocation of resources to repair this problem. The article aims to identify opportunities for increasing labour productivity within various models of economic development, determine the relationship between the dynamics of productivity and wages, as well as establish difficulties that arise when measuring and applying the productivity indicator in economic analysis and government decision-making. The theory of economic growth and productivity constitute the methodological basis of the study. The methods include empirical and structural analysis. The evidence base is the data from the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, the International Labour Organization, and the World Bank for the period 2000–2025. The paper concludes that labour productivity, being an effective indicator, cannot be absolutised as a target for economic development, despite the fact that its increase ensures sustainable growth. Such an increase cannot be an end in itself and should be achieved through the intensive use of resources. It was found that depending on the emerged development model and the economic structure determined by the ratio of the sectors of means of production and consumer goods, various options for the labour productivity dynamics are possible. The calculations confirm that until 2008 labour productivity per dollar of wages in Russia was higher than in the USA, then this superiority disappeared due to changes in the employment and wage growth. There are established growth regimes when wages in the sector of means of production can and should go up, outpacing productivity, creating a basis for an increase in productivity in the future. This will require extensive research maintaining an inter-sectoral perspective, and should be taken into account when forming measures to increase labour productivity.

Keywords: labour productivity; capital productivity; technological intensity; economic structure; measurement methods; output; labour intensity.

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For citation: Glazyev S. Yu., Sukharev O. S. (2026). Labour productivity: Measurement and opportunities for improvement. Journal of New Economy, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 6–27. DOI: 10.29141/2658-5081-2026-27-1-1. EDN: YTJXIJ.