Top 10 most productive countries

1 min read

How productive are you at work? Do you give your tasks your full attention and clear your to-do list every day, or are you more likely to have Facebook open on a second tab that you hurriedly click away from when somebody walks past?

If you’re in the second camp, you’ll be please to know that when data scientists measure labour productivity, they don’t look at the amount of time you spend scrolling on social media. What’s measured is the average amount of GDP (gross domestic product) a worker creates per hour. That might seem a bit vague if you’re a teacher or a taxi driver, but if you work if a factory, you could think of it as a measure of how many products you make in an hour.

Productivity has been rising steadily around the world for decades, thanks in no small part to technology. And not only does technological innovation make us more productive, it also drives an increase in income and a decrease in working hours.

But which nation produces the most GDP per hour worked? Read on to find out which countries are the most productive overall, according to a study of 2017 data by Our World in Data.