$391 Per Worker: Venezuela's Productivity Collapse and What It Means for Anyone Who Wants to Produce There
Real output per worker in Venezuela fell from $1,014 in 2008 to $391 in 2025. To match the output of one American worker, you need 286 Venezuelans. The most devastating number in the country isn't inflation or debt — it's productivity. And no OFAC license fixes it.
The St. Louis Fed published an analysis this week that puts into numbers what every business operator in Caracas experiences daily: Venezuela has suffered the largest peacetime labor productivity collapse in modern history. Output per worker — how much economic value the average employed person generates — dropped from $1,014 in 2008 to $391 in 2025. A Venezuelan worker today produces less than half of what they produced 17 years ago.
The figure isn't explained by sanctions or lack of workers. It's explained by the destruction of the productive apparatus: shuttered factories, broken supply chains, intermittent electricity, congested ports, and the massive flight of skilled human capital. 7.7 million Venezuelans emigrated — but productivity didn't rise among those who stayed because the infrastructure they work with was destroyed alongside them.
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