In Q1 2016 there were a number of challenges that may have impacted on labour productivity. For a significant part of the quarter, the petrol scarcity that was experienced in Q4 2015 intensified, while investment in the economy continued to decline (both government and private). Many firms had to let workers go and those that did not retrench workers had them doing less productive work than they did in previous quarters. There were also power issues, which saw a notable decline relative to the previous quarter. In addition, the scarcity of foreign exchange caused a large divergence between the parallel and official exchange rates, which made imported 669.57 730.85 768.42 706.95 605.27 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 Q1, 2015 Q2, 2015 Q3, 2015 Q4, 2015 Q1, 2016 Labour Productivity (N) goods more expensive and affected the ability of businesses reliant on raw material imports for their production

Data source: National Bureau of Statistics

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