As Britain gets fit for what David Cameron calls the ‘global economic race’, figures out this morning confirm Britain remains hamstrung by poor productivity.
UK productivity per hour has remained stagnant over the last year (having fallen by 1.76 per cent since 2008). When he eyed the competition at last week’s G8 summit, the Prime Minister will have clocked that only sclerotic Russia and stagnant Japan have worse productivity than the UK. According to a recent Office of National Statistics (ONS) review, Britain lags 16 percentage points behind the G7 average, 27 behind the US.
Ageing infrastructure and under-investment has blighted the oil and gas sector. Manufacturing productivity last year fell by 5.2 per cent – the biggest decline ever recorded by the ONS – while the value added by workers in London and the South East outshines those in the North (although the rate of start ups, there, offers a glimmer of hope).
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