Productivity Trend in the Off-Site Construction Sector of Wooden Houses

With rising production costs and an insufficient production development, firms in the Swedish industry for wooden single-family houses might face severe problems in productivity. This is gaining in importance, considering that this industry highly tends towards perfect competition, i.e. firms mainly have to compete by prices. This study investigates the productivity of Swedish firms producing wooden single-family houses off-site, by analysing the ratio between turnover and number of employees as factors affecting productivity. 48 firms were studied from 2010 to 2013 and the results show that the average firm productivity in the industry worsened by 6.56 %, with a slight improvement from 2012 to 2013. 23 firms increased and 25 firms decreased their productivity during the investigated time span, yet, from 2012 to 2013, 31 firms improved productivity. Almost half of the 23 firms with increased productivity achieved that betterment even though their turnover decreased and 12 firms improved productivity with declining turnover. Another 12 firms tried to compensate declining turnover with resigning employees, yet, could not keep their former productivity level