Montréal, January 29, 2020 – Not only has the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) improved its productivity since 2016, but the gains it has made have allowed it to maintain the real value of the dividend it pays every year to the government while at the same time lowering prices, concludes a report released today by the Centre for Productivity and Prosperity – Walter J. Somers Foundation (CPP). “This analysis follows up on a study we conducted in 2016, revealing that the government corporation’s performance had been stagnant for close to 30 years. So it seems that the new strategies adopted by the SAQ have borne fruit,” says Robert Gagné, CPP Director and co-author of the study.
Since 2015, labour productivity at the SAQ rose by 1.9% per year, a pace of growth that far exceeded the average in the Quebec economy over the same period (0.59% annually). Thanks to these productivity gains, the corporation even surpassed its peak productivity, achieved in 1989.
