High sustainable economic growth can only be obtained if there are larger additions to the production capacity of South Africa and increased productivity. We not only need to work harder, we also need to work smarter. Since 1994 there has been a marked improvement in labour productivity.
In the past five years the growth in production per worker in the non-agricultural formal sector of the economy has averaged more than 3½% per year. These increases in labour productivity were, however, obtained by substituting new fixed investment to replace labour, rather than by expanding the productive base of the economy.