Report Raises Waterfront Productivity Concerns

Productivity has stalled over the past decade.

Castalia’s report looked at the five major ports of Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Adelaide and Fremantle over a 10 year period.

“Further wage increases without commensurate productivity gains would put an additional strain on the competitiveness of the Australian traded sector,” the report says.

Castalia examined three measures of productivity – in absolute terms, in per employee terms and per real dollar of wages.

Castalia’s analysis measured productivity per employee in relation to the:

• crane rate - the number of containers moved on or off a ship per hour;
• vessel working rate - the number of containers moved on or of a ship divided by the amount of labour time; and,
• ship rate - the rate at which a ship is unloaded.

Shipping Australia welcomed the report, saying its members had been complaining about a lack of productivity for “a number of years”.

However, a Maritime Union of Australia spokesman said the union questioned “many of the assumptions” used in the report.

“The data in the Waterline series (Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics) is considered to be the most reliable source of information for measuring stevedoring productivity,” he said.

“The Waterline series has been showing reasonable improvements in labour productivity in recent years and it is a lack of capital investment which is the major driver in slowing overall productivity growth.”

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