The 19 most productive countries in the world

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Productivity is one of the key drivers of economic success. The more productive a country's workers are, the more value they can bring to their employers and therefore their home nation's economy.

New research from business-to-business marketplace Expert Market has shed some light on where in the world people are the most productive. Expert Market compared data from 35 of the world's biggest economies before compiling their ranking.

To do this, they looked at the GDP per capita of nations and divided that by the number of hours worked per person, giving a rough guide to which nations make the most money in the least amount of time, and are therefore the most productive.

Numbers quoted below are the amount of value each worker brings to their country's economy per hour worked. Check out the ranking underneath:

19. Italy: £15.62 of value created per hour — Italy's economy may be in the doldrums and the country may be staring down a banking crisis, but according to Expert Market's data workers are among the most productive in the world, although they are towards the lower end of in terms of European nations.

18. Spain: £15.63 — Spain is another economy facing serious issues, exacerbated by the inability of the country to elect a majority government to rule effectively. As a result — like Italians — Spanish workers are among the least productive in Europe's top economies.

17. Japan: £16.72 — Another country, another stuttering economy. Japan is undergoing an unprecedented experiment with negative interest rates, and possibly helicopter money. Despite this, according to Expert Market's data, Japanese workers are the most productive of all the Asian nations surveyed.

16. United Kingdom: £18.64 — Britain is almost entirely focused on the fallout from Brexit right now, but the country's productivity figures are disappointing, losing out to all major European nations other than Spain and Italy. ]

15. Iceland: £18.76 — Iceland frequently features towards the top end of rankings for things like quality of life and happiness, and it also scores pretty well in Expert Market's productivity ranking.

Tourists stand in the Blue Lagoon outside Reykjavik (OLIVIER MORIN/AFP/Getty)

14. Finland: £18.95 — A recent ranking put Finland as the country with the world's best quality of life, and that could be helping it to be more productive than many other European nations.

13. Canada: £20.30 — America's friends in the Great White North have a GDP per capita of £34,591 and work an average of 32.77 hours per week. Those numbers mean that Canada is beaten in the productivity stakes by the US.

12. France: £21.21 — France have shorter working weeks than the UK but workers easily produce more in GDP than Brits do per hour.

11. Austria: £22.03 — The central European nation's GDP per capita is £35,880 per annum, while workers spent roughly 31.3 hours a week working, making them more productive than many European neighbours.

10. Sweden: £22.58 — Like its fellow Scandinavian states, Sweden is famed for being happy, crime-free, and just generally a pretty good place to live. That obviously seems to be helping productivity in the country.

9. Ireland: £23.12 — Ireland hit headlines recently after new data showed the country's GDP expanded by 26% in 2015, a ridiculous jump. That largely down to several one-off factors, but it could also have something to do with the productivity of workers.

8. United States: £23.66 — US GDP per capita sits at £42,328, while workers spend an average 34.4 hours doing their jobs each week. That translates into productivity only bettered by seven other nations, and makes the USA the second most productive English speaking nation.

7. Denmark: £24.14 —Denmark just pips near neighbour Sweden in the productivity stakes, but misses out on being the most productive Scandinavian state.

6. Germany: £25.95 — Germans have a reputation for efficiency, and that plays out in the productivity stakes, with Germany being the most productive G7 member state.

German fans in high spirits on the streets of Marseille (Getty)

5. Netherlands: £26.19 — Dutch people are famously laid back, but that reputation may be unfounded, given that the Netherlands is the fourth most productive nation in Europe.

4. Switzerland: £28.35 — Swiss workers spend an average of 30.16 hours per week in the office, but contribute to a GDP per capita of £44,452, making them some of the most productive on earth.

3. Australia: £29.81 — Australia takes two crowns. One being the most productive English speaking nation, and the second as the most productive country outside Europe, according to Expert Market.

2. Norway: £36.36 — The Scandinavian crown for productivity sits on the head of Norway, whose workers are more than twice as productive, in monetary terms, than those in Italy, Spain and Japan.

1. Luxembourg: £45.71 — The world's most productive nation by a long way is the tiny central European state, probably most famous for being the home of EU Commission President Jean Claude Juncker. No other state even comes close.

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