South Korean public companies’ labor productivity has improved over the past few years as the government stepped up efforts to enhance competitiveness in the public sector, the finance ministry said Thursday.

According to the ministry, per-capita labor productivity in state-run companies rose at an annual average of 31.6 percent from

2008 through 2010, noticeably higher than the 24.9 percent average gains tallied for large private-sector businesses.

The improvement was ascribed to the government‘s drive to enhance competitiveness in the public sector, alongside efforts by individual companies to create added value for their products and services.

Labor productivity is measured by dividing added value by labor input during a given period of time. The ministry said it surveyed 24 public companies to measure labor productivity for 2008 and 2009 and 20 firms for 2010.

Their per-capita labor productivity stood at an average of 323 million won ($284,330) in 2010, up from 275 million won in 2009.

The figure in 2008 was 189 million won, the ministry said.

Incheon International Airport Corp. was among the top rankers, with 728 million won of per-capita labor productivity. Korea Express Corp. and Korea Power Electric Corp. also posted 1.15 billion won and 629 million won, respectively.

Korea Tourism Organization and Korea Appraisal Board, meanwhile, registered relatively lower labor productivity of 31 million and 75 million won, the ministry said. (Yonhap News)