As the labour force is starting to diminish, maintaining sustained and reasonably strong economic growth will be increasingly difficult. This underscores the necessity of paying a lot of attention to labour productivity: in the emerging area of a declining labour force, productivity increases are emerging as the only source of economic growth.
One way to spur productivity is to remove obstacles from effective competition in the services sector, for instance. The adverse change of our population structure also requires that, in social and tax policy, as well as in education, incentives to work must be given high priority. The effects of an ageing population are felt on public finances as well.