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The Anatomy of UK Labour Productivity: Lessons from New and Existing Data Sources

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Philip Wales
Philip Wales*
Affiliation:
Office for National Statistics
*
E-mail: philip.wales@ons.gov.uk
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Abstract

The UK's recent productivity performance has been strikingly weak. Output per hour worked, which increased by around 2.1 per cent per year in the decade leading up to the economic downturn, increased by just 0.2 per cent per year in the ten years following the global financial crisis. This paper presents three ‘stylised facts’ on the UK's recent productivity performance through the lens of official statistics: the weakness of recent productivity growth; the ‘gap’ in productivity terms between the UK and other leading economies; and the large differences in productivity between businesses. It surveys recent work by ONS to help researchers and policy-makers to understand the UK's productivity performance, including new experimental and official statistics, analysis and research. It concludes by drawing together the key findings of these new statistics, highlighting how further improvements might be made through the greater use of survey and administrative data.

Keywords

labour productivityaggregate labour productivitycapitaltotal factorand multifactor productivityJ24E24D24
Type
Research Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 247 , February 2019 , pp. R40 - R52
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

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Footnotes

The author recognises contributions from participants at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) special session at the Royal Economic Society Annual Conference 2018. Research assistance from Ted Dolby and Jamie Watt is gratefully acknowledged, as are comments on an earlier draft from Gaganan Awano, Katherine Kent, Richard Heys and an anonymous referee. Any omissions or errors are the author's.

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