South Korea‘s labor productivity fell by the second-largest margin in the third quarter of last year among the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), due mainly to a drop in economic growth, data showed Sunday.

According to the data compiled by the OECD, South Korea’s labor productivity declined 0.4 percent in the July-September period of last year from three months earlier, the second-largest drop among the 22 OECD member countries after Norway, which suffered a 1.3 percent drop.

Labor productivity is measured by dividing industrial output by labor input during a given period of time.

“The decline (in labor productivity) was mainly due to a sharp drop in the third-quarter economic growth,” said Song Tae-jeong, an analyst at Woori Investment & Securities.

South Korea‘s number of employees went up 0.5 percent in the third quarter of last year from the previous quarter, but its economy grew a meager 0.1 percent on-quarter.

South Korea’s labor productivity decreased 0.1 percent in the first three quarters of last year. The country‘s labor productivity gained 1.6 percent, 0.8 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

Only six countries, including Portugal and Italy, saw their labor productivity decline in the third quarter. The surveyed countries registered an average 0.2 percent rise in their labor productivity, according to the OECD data. (Yonhap News)