Workers in South Africa are just about as lazy as workers in Germany, Brazil, France and the United States, according to a global productivity survey released on Wednesday.

In contrast, Australia and the United Kingdom seem to have the hardest workers. They waste nearly half less time at work than those in the other countries, showed the 2008 Global Productivity Survey.

"The percentage of a worker's time spent on unproductive activities rose 2.2 points to 34.3 percent in 2007," said Proudfoot Consulting CEO Luiz Carvalho, whose company conducted the survey in 12 countries.

"Put another way, workers spend 89.5 days of every working year (or 1.7 days of every work week) doing things which do not deliver productive results for their company."

Among those, South Africa's unproductive time stands at 41.8 percent, compared to Germany (40.2 percent), Brazil (39.8 percent), France (38.8 percent) and the United States (37.4 percent).

"All these countries posted increases in unproductive time in 2007," stated the report.

Only two countries, Australia and the United Kingdom, reported reductions in unproductive time at 22.9 percent and 26 percent respectively.

But South Africans are not all bad — some 23 percent of South African managers reported productivity increases of more than 15 percent in 2007.

"Yet despite the relatively high level of performance over the last year, South African managers believe their companies are leaving significant productivity gains on the table," said Carvalho.

Also, South Africa ranks second in the share of managers (71 percent) who are planning to invest in programmes to boost staff morale.

Staff shortages are the main barriers to productivity in South Africa and Australia, the survey concluded.

"Staff shortages and insufficient labour pools are having a significant negative impact on productivity, particularly in the southern hemisphere, with 48 percent and 37 percent of respondents Australia and South Africa recording this as the main contributor to inefficiency," said Carvalho.

The mining and food and beverages industries were the hardest hit by staff shortages.

The survey included more than 1250 interviews with senior company officials in the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, France, Russia, Australia, Germany, India, South Africa, Spain and China.

Those interviewed worked in six sectors — mining, financial services, manufacturing, communications, food and beverage, automotive, energy and retail.

Managers in South Africa (33 percent) and France (27 percent) cited legislation and regulation as the number two barrier to productivity.

"Legislation plays a big role in our productivity. There has been an avalanche of new legislation that's set to protect consumers. We have to be continuously creative with our process otherwise our costs will just be ballooning," Hollard Life Company managing director Mandla Shezi was quoted as saying in the report.

High staff turnover rates was a concern for South African companies where 24 percent of managers cited it as a productivity barrier, compared to 34 percent in Russia and 29 percent in both Australia and India. The global average was 19.9 percent.

High staff turnover was one of the lowest ranked barriers in China, cited by only eight percent of managers.

The quality of supervisors was a big problem in South Africa (31 percent of managers cited it as a productivity barrier) and the United Kingdom (28 percent) compared to the global average of 19.6 percent.

Too much paperwork was a top concern in Brazil and the United Kingdom.

"Managers reported receiving 34 percent more management reports each month than they need to do their jobs," stated the survey.

"The paperwork overload is most severe in Brazil, where managers report 61 percent of the reports they receive are unnecessary, and the United Kingdom (51 percent), as well as in the mining sector (51 percent)."

Sapa