This paper attempts to measure and analyse the changes in the productive use of capital and labour in jute and cotton textile industries in Bangladesh especially over two distinct time periods, pre-liberation and post-liberation. The paper demonstrates that in the case of cotton textile industry the positive trend growth rate in capital productivity had outweighed the negative trend growth rate in labour productivity leading to a positive growth rate in total factor productivity over the whole period (1962-78). In the case of jute textile industry, however, the trend rate of growth for both labour and capital productivity is negative leading to a negative growth rate in total productivity over the same period. In the case of both jute and cotton textile industry capital intensity had been higher during pre-liberation period than during post-liberation period. The falling rates of capital intensity in the post-liberation period outweighed the rising capital intensity in the pre-liberation period leading to an overall negative growth rate in capital intensity. The paper concludes that productivity performance of both jute and cotton textile industry is far from satisfactory. The paper identifies and distinguishes two sets of factors influencing the factor productivity of both jute and cotton textile industry over the two time periods. It concludes with some observations relating to the policy implications of these findings.