This document contains the final report of the National Center for Productivity and Quality of Working Life, whose primary functions are to make the United States aware of the benefits of productivity growth and to encourage initiatives that will result in better productivity performance. Divided into six major sections, this report reviews the Center's activities and attempts to place these activities into the context of the Nation's progress in productivity relative to economic and social goals. Section 1 points out the need for a national policy explicitly directed toward improving productivity. The second section emphasizes the contribution productivity growth can make to solving some national problems and to achieving some long term goals. The third section details the recent deceleration in the rate at which our productivity is improving. The next two sections outline, on a national basis and for specific sectors, what has been, is being, and needs to be done to increase productive efficiency. The sixth section sets forth the Center's recommendations for actions, both public and private, which would raise the nation's rate of productivity growth. Appended materials include an annotated listing of the Center's publications; listings of Center-sponsored studies, reports, articles, and other activities; a listing of productivity and quality of working life centers (see also CE 019 154); and a brief summary of some of the productivity-related projects of other federal agencies. (BM)