Amid the attention given to the ‘Three Brexiteers’ in their efforts to establish post-Brexit trade with the rest of the world, the work of business secretary Greg Clark often gets overlooked. But in conversation with James Forsyth at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, this is what we learned about the government’s business strategy. The event was sponsored by the Nuclear Industry Association.
With unemployment at a 40-year low, Britain can claim to be the ‘jobs capital of the world’, but we can’t claim to be the earnings capital of the world. The productivity gap has been puzzling economists for years, with little improvement since the economic crisis of 2008/09. ‘If you look at output per hour worked we are less than France, Germany, Italy and the US.’
One suggestion is that our low productivity is inextricably linked to our flexible labour markets.
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