Fact Check: Is Liberia the Third Least Productive Country in the World?

Summary: Liberian economist Samuel Jackson labeled Liberia as the third least productive country on Earth. We verified his statement by researching several data and found it be correct.

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On June 3, a panelist on Spoon Talk, Samuel Jackson claimed that Liberia is the third least productive country in the world. He made the claim at the 58:25 timestamp on the live nighttime radio program while pinpointing reasons the country cannot attract foreign direct investment.

The Claim

Mr. Jackson exact words were: “Liberia is the third least productive country on the planet.”

Rating Justification

To verify the claim, we contacted Mr. Jackson for his reliance and he mentioned a June 2024 report by Insider Monkey on the 20 least productive countries in the world .

Insider Money complies and provides high-quality evidence-based articles to inform individual investors about the intricacies of investing.

The report ranked Liberia 3^rd among the 20 least productive countries listed by the website based on its estimated GDP per capita in 2023, relying on the data published by the International Labour Organization.

We also found another report by Business Insider Africa, a leading pan-African innovative business news provider, on the top 10 least productive countries in Africa.

This report also ranked Liberia 3^rd amongst the 10 countries listed from Africa as the least productive countries on the continent.

Meanwhile, recent statistics on labour productivity from the International Labour Organization ranked Liberia third from the bottom on the list of countries with the lowest productivity.

According to the ILO, labour productivity is an important economic indicator that is closely linked to economic growth, competitiveness, and living standards within an economy.

Conclusion

Based on these facts, we conclude that the claim made by Economist Samuel Jackson that Liberia is the third least productive country in the world is correct.

According to multiple sources including the ILO, Liberia is the third least labour productive country in the world.

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This report is produced with funding from the USAID Media Activity. The funder has No say in the editorial decisions leading to the production of this content