We studied labour productivity growth in Ecuador from 1998 to 2006 by using firm-level data from the annual survey of manufacturing and mining. This period is characterised by the economic crisis in 1999 and important economic reforms. During the crisis, there was a two percent annual decrease in productivity in 1998–2000, but the recovery was strong with a five percent annual productivity growth in 2002–2004. Our productivity decomposition indicated that the main source of productivity growth came from firms with increasing productivity gaining market shares. Within-firm productivity decline was substantial during the crisis, but its growth was secondary in the post crisis recovery. Firm entry and exit only had minor impacts on labour productivity. Our distributional analysis further showed that labour productivity distribution increased in 2000–2002 and had remained at higher level for the rest of the sample period.