For most countries, government represents the largest portion of the economy and is the biggest employer. In the United States, for example, government at all levels accounted for about 47 percent of GDP and about 17 percent of total employment in 2020. As governments emerge from the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, they could focus on productivity, find senior partner Shubham Singhal and coauthors. There’s a $725 billion to $765 billion opportunity in the United States to improve productivity—or, in other words, roughly $750 billion annually could be saved while keeping government services operating just as effectively.
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A pair of horizontal bar graphs displays the top 20 countries of 2 distinct categories: government employment as a percentage of total employment, and government spending as a percentage of GDP. The countries are aligned from highest to lowest based on their government employment figures, with a corresponding ranking in government spending. In the government employment graph, Austria leads with 35.2%, followed by Sweden at 29.2% and Denmark at 29.0%. The US holds the 10th position, with a government employment figure of 17.1%. In the government spending graph, France tops the list with a spending of 61.5% of its GDP, trailed by Greece at 59.7%, and Belgium at 58.9%. The US also ranks 10th here, with government spending constituting about 47.3% of its GDP.
Source: International Labour Organization; OECD.
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To read the article, see “US government productivity: A more than $2,000 per resident opportunity,” September 5, 2023.