It is not straightforward to measure the productivity of some information sectors. So for example Microsoft constantly releases software updates of its Windows operating system, but only once in a while a new version such as Windows 10 and even more rarely a completely new type of software. So depending on if our unit of measure is the number of software updates, versions, or different software types, one will get very different productivity measures for Microsoft. A unified and standardised measure of productivity based on measuring the output of use-values per unit of time is therefore very difficult to obtain. However, all capitalist companies produce commodities that yield a specific amount of profit per year. So if one measures the monetary output per labour input (e.g. US\$/hour), then one can arrive at a unified and standardised measure of productivity that can be applied to the information sector.
Such a measure can be obtained by combining two variables from OECD’s STAN database, namely value added in current prices (national currency) (VALU) and total hours worked by employees (HRSE). I downloaded these data for six countries and then calculated:
labour productivity = VALU / HRSE [national currency/hour]
Tables 12.12 and 12.13 present the results.
Chapter Twelve | The Information Economy
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Labour Productivity in the Information Sector