Boosting productivity in service industries such as education and health will be central to shoring up Australia’s future prosperity.
In a major, five-yearly report, the Productivity Commission offers a long list of recommendations to get sluggish productivity growth moving.
This includes a future-income-based university funding model and phasing out fuel taxes in favour of a nationwide road user charge suitable for electric cars and busting congestion.
The report outlines the challenges of eking out productivity gains in services industries, such as education, health, hospitality, retail and finance, that employ 90 percent of Australians.
The commission says productivity improvement in services is hard because these industries are labour-intensive, often delivered in-person and not suitable for mass production….