This report stems from the work initiated in the Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD) forUzbekistan in May 2016, which identified the quality of job creation as a central, cross-cuttingtheme. The SCD emphasized that "over the medium term, creating high-productivity, high-paying jobs for Uzbekistan's growing population will be vital to sustaining economic growth, reinforcing social stability, and enabling further improvements in the welfare of households in the bottom 40 percent of the income distribution. Uzbekistan can expect to develop higher-paying jobs as it transitions from a factor-driven economy to an efficiency-driven economy." However, given data constraints, the SCD cited the need for a more detailed analysis and assessment of various dimensions of economic data, based on additional data. This report builds on the SCD and represents a further step in an ongoing strategic and analytical engagement with Uzbekistan. In this context, the report deepens the analysis of the two key factors contributing to growth in GDP per capita in Uzbekistan: growth in labor productivity and growth in employment. This new analysis was possible by applying the growth decomposition tool to new data disaggregated by sectors of the economy and new data on constraints to productivity and employment growth generated by the three enterprise surveys conducted for this report. These surveys were carried out in 2013 and 2017 in five subsectors of Uzbekistan's manufacturing sector (machinery building, chemicals and petrochemicals, light industry, food processing, and construction materials). The same questionnaire was used to survey 122 large firms in 2013, 111 large firms in 2017, and 478 small firms in 2017 across six regions of Uzbekistan. The survey data allowed a more systematic diagnostic analysis of Uzbekistan's growth challenges and the identification of the most binding constraints to jobs and productivity, which will help ensure more tailored and relevant policy advice
