The controversy continues over the productivity figures that Dane presented this week to the Productivity Subcommittee, which is part of the table where businessmen and unions define the increase in the minimum wage for this year, and which for some analysts requires a strict review of the model that was used to calculate them.
After the director of the National Administrative Department of Statistics, Piedad Urdinola, explained in Portfolio the variables and calculations that were taken into account to determine the 3.43% of labor productivity that was reported to the Minimum Wage Concertation Commission, the Andi and Fedesarrollo were concerned with this information, and They highlighted that greater rigor is required in this regard.
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In this sense, Bruce Mac Máster, president of Andi, insisted that the country must be better informed about the nature of the data put on the table, given that it is not the same as what happens in cases such as inflation or Gross Domestic Product, and is much broader in its interpretations.
“You have to ask for rigor in the statements you make. I should clarify “that productivity, unlike the other figures they publish, is not a statistic, it is not an observable data, but rather it is a calculation that is made based on a model that estimates it,” he indicated.
Members of the table, on the second day of the Productivity Subcommittee.
Mac Master added that “It should also have the critical spirit of at least questioning how the productivity of a variable can increase from one year to the next while there are no increases in investments in capital goods, much less increases in the capabilities of the work that, by the way, presents fairly stable levels of unemployment for many months”.
The union leader maintained that it is not about responding firmly, but about presenting reliable figures, while recalling that this figure has historically been prepared and disclosed by the National Planning Department and that it was until recently that This task was left in the hands of the Dane, which uses a different process to calculate the data.
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Review the formulas
In the case of Fedesarrollo, its director, Luis Fernando Mejía, stated that productivity is an unobservable variable, so its estimate arises from an economic model and a series of assumptions, which must be handled carefully, to generate data that is hand in hand with the reality of the places where they are calculated.
“It is not a traditional official statistic, like growth, inflation and unemployment, which arise from observable economic phenomena (production, costs of goods and services, unemployed). In this sense, labor productivity is a controversial measure, unlike the rest of the variables published by Dane”he indicated.
Bruce Mac Master, president of Andi and the National Guild Council.
Private file
For Mejía, Dane must be open to reviewing a model that it has used for only three years and that can be improved. “Among other things, the relevant measure for the discussion of the minimum wage is not the growth of total labor productivity, but the growth of labor productivity of those formally employed around a minimum wage. Today we will bring our estimates in this regard to the technical table”.
While this debate continues, both employers and unions continue to seek to agree on how much the minimum wage for Colombians should rise next year, a task that for now has the priority of guaranteeing the purchasing power and quality of life of the Colombians. workers, without putting at risk the economic stability of a country hit by the slowdown.
