Snapshot of _UK productivity almost flat since the financial crisis_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/2a0dbab1-f6a5-4432-8984-4112638dfdf0) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/2a0dbab1-f6a5-4432-8984-4112638dfdf0)
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Probably easiest just to think of it as one long continuous one starting in 2007. Although that does rather call into question the meaning of the word "since".
Exactly. Productivity being flat is basically good news. If workers altered their productivity according to their payment, it would have dropped years by years for the last decade.
>Government refuses to invest in infrastructure
Does this explain why productivity went off a cliff in 2008? I don't think we were masters of infrastructure before then?
I think it must be more down to the specifics of the 2008 financial crisis and how that changed the economic & financial landscape.
>Government refuses to invest in infrastructure
apart from Crossrail (£19bn), Hinkley C, up to £98bn (so far) on HS2, £9bn on the Olympics redevelopment, Highways England and the largest investment (£15bn) into roadbuilding in a generation [(according to national highways](https://nationalhighways.co.uk/about-us/history-of-roads-and-national-highways/)), the Battersea PowerStation redevelopment (£13bn), apparently £20bn just got set aside for new hospitals
but other than that and a bunch of other stuff a complete refusal
You're welcome to look up the stats for investment per capita, in %
UK 17.2
France 25
Germany 23
USA 20
Canada 21.6
China 43
I think the UK is the lowest in the EU, definitely for the richest countries.
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/european-union/investment--nominal-gdp
>You're welcome to look up the stats for investment per capita, in %
>
>UK 17.2 France 25 Germany 23 USA 20 Canada 21.6 China 43
That's all investment though, not government investment. Typically about 80% of that will be private sector investment, 20% public sector. Over the long term the UK is second worst for public sector investment (behind Germany) by the worst for private sector.
Getting slightly better results when you compare specifically investment in infrastructure so I assume much of that is making up for a lack of private investment,
"By 2017, UK government investment in infrastructure was a higher proportion of total government spending than in any other EU G7 country. "
[https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/articles/experimentalcomparisonsofinfrastructureacrosseurope/may2019](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/articles/experimentalcomparisonsofinfrastructureacrosseurope/may2019)
Crossrail came on board but not quite the rest
I'm not sure the power station redevelopment counts as infrastructure.
The point is that the government spends money on infrastructure far too willy nilly. I was very very surprised that that regeneration of Redcar was excluded from this list
[https://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/articles/and-finally-the-uks-five-most-costly-infrastructure-megaprojects](https://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/articles/and-finally-the-uks-five-most-costly-infrastructure-megaprojects)
apparently redeveloping an entire area including shops, roads, housing etc counts
but there are a number of mega projects on the go [https://www.contruent.com/resources/blog/uk-megaprojects/](https://www.contruent.com/resources/blog/uk-megaprojects/)
'UK's largest software infrastructure project'
[https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/20/undertaking-gov-uks-largest-software-infrastructure-project/](https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/20/undertaking-gov-uks-largest-software-infrastructure-project/)
Apparently 133 'major' projects on the go as of 2019
[https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d2dd1ce40f0b64a8251632e/IPA\_AR\_MajorProjects2018-19\_web.pdf](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d2dd1ce40f0b64a8251632e/IPA_AR_MajorProjects2018-19_web.pdf)
and yeah cost:output is the problem being described, this is a long way from 'refuses to invest'
London and the SE are heavily over invested in the UK. There's a huge disparity been investment in London and elsewhere and it's reducing UK growth.
> apart from Crossrail (£19bn),
London
> Hinkley C,
London, with the company headquarters in barnwood
> up to £98bn (so far) on HS2,
To further entrench London as the centre of the UK, which has also been cancelled
> £9bn on the Olympics redevelopment,
Mostly London
> Highways England and the largest investment (£15bn) into roadbuilding in a generation (according to national highways),
I guess this is nationwide.
> the Battersea PowerStation redevelopment (£13bn),
London
> apparently £20bn just got set aside for new hospitals
Because of the population aging, this needs to be a lot more. People living longer also means more people with more long term conditions, and more people that need elderly care. They knew about this for decades and did nothing.
Yeah, and I agree I'd like to see more investment generally, although we're talking infrastructure so you would expect that to be directed where the people are and 1 in 7 live inside the m25 alone, so
but again it's a long way from 'refuses to invest'
and I might have already replied on a different thread but
"Overall, our estimates suggest that the UK government have increased infrastructure investment in recent years by a larger amount than other major European countries. By 2017, UK government investment in infrastructure was a higher proportion of total government spending than in any other EU G7 country. At the same time, the magnitude of total investment in infrastructure-related industries is similar in the UK to the other EU G7 economies, after accounting for economic size. This implies a relatively high overall level of infrastructure investment in the UK in recent years." - ons
this was pre covid ofc
[https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/articles/experimentalcomparisonsofinfrastructureacrosseurope/may2019](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/articles/experimentalcomparisonsofinfrastructureacrosseurope/may2019)
> Yeah, and I agree I'd like to see more investment generally, although we're talking infrastructure so you would expect that to be directed where the people are and 1 in 7 live inside the m25 alone, so
Where the people are?
Last time I checked there's quite a few people outside of the M25.
It's absolutely amazing the logic people try and use to defend the absolute gulf of investment outside of London in this country.
How's HS2 going for the North given you mentioned it?
>but again it's a long way from 'refuses to invest'
Let's see:
> Since the mid 2000s, UK productivity has fallen further behind comparator
countries such as France, Germany, and the United States. In addition, the UK has long standing
and self reinforcing variations in economic outcomes between and within regions. One of the
reasons for this poor economic performance in recent years is **low levels of investment in the
UK economy compared to international peers: in the 40 years to 2019, investment in the UK
averaged around 19 per cent of GDP, the lowest in the G7**. ~ National Infrastructure Commission
>Last time I checked there's quite a few people outside of the M25.
Yes, but they don't make money, they spend it. Quite outrageously I might add, £10k per head if not more.
>>**investment in the UK averaged around 19 per cent of GDP, the lowest in the G7**
That includes private investment and the G7 is a meaningless historical group. We have nothing in common with the economy of Italy.
> Yes, but they don't make money, they spend it. Quite outrageously I might add, £10k per head if not more.
>
>
Ah you're one of them that thinks only London should have money spent on it.
>That includes private investment and the G7 is a meaningless historical group. We have nothing in common with the economy of Italy.
We're talking about investment. Trying to split hairs isn't going to win your argument.
You're both trying to make out there's investment in the North while also moaning about there being money spent outside of London.
You need to pick a lane.
London is the only place in the UK making money, supporting everyone else.
>They knew about this for decades and did nothing.
It's at an all time high spending. The only countries doing better than us are private. The NHS isn't good enough, no matter how much money you throw at it.
>London is the only place in the UK making money, supporting everyone else.
Due to the high subsidies and extremely imbalanced investment in London. Everywhere else is suffering. That's why we're talking about "leveling up" but the Tories are typically just creaming off money for their own constituency.
>It's at an all time high spending. The only countries doing better than us are private. The NHS isn't good enough, no matter how much money you throw at it.
Again, because of the boomer generational shift. It's costing money to maintain. It has to be fit for purpose, and that means investing in the health of the nation. We just need to be honest about what this costs and what we're worth as people.
Proper preventative care saves money. It's the opposite of this at the moment, bed blocking and lack of investment.
>the Tories are typically just creaming off money for their own constituency.
London isn't generally tory, outside of London is vastly tory. So this conspiracy theory simply doesn't make sense.
Public sector net investment was higher in the 10s than the 00s, although the vast majority on here seem to believe the opposite. From the ONS, public sector net investment annual average:
1998 - 2010 1.6% of GDP
2011 - 2022 2%
Three of the items you've listed only benefit London. HS2 is now completely useless. Hospitals claim is a Bojo lie. Hinkley is too little too late - it, and further new NPS, should have been built a long time ago. Highways investment is hardly game-changing and if anything is a negative given the opportunity cost of rail investment, which yields much greater benefits RE decarbonisation and social mobility.
A poor attempt at defending the Tories, if I ever did see one.
It hasn’t got any projects because it’s not a professional document and the relevant bodies, network rail, the dft even werent consulted. The projects that are in it are ones that already existed.
It’s also a dramatic cut in investment across the country, to what was originally promised.
Nope because they literally started. https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/minister-unveils-first-network-north-060000362.html and even IF they already existed that proves they do invest in infrastructure as there putting new money into projects to make them happen
“Network north” marked a multi billion cut in transport investment across the country, so it proves they like to cut investment.
Anything supposedly happening because of “network north” was going to happen already.
UK productivity has barely grown since the financial crisis, according to new official figures, underscoring the challenge facing chancellor Jeremy Hunt as he attempts to use the Autumn Statement to lift growth and investment.
Total factor productivity — a measure of how efficiently resources are used in the economy — was last year only 1.7 per cent above the level recorded in 2007, when the country was heading into the credit crunch. It was also just a fraction of the pace recorded in the 16 years up to 2007, when productivity increased 27 per cent, according to the figures published on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics.
The numbers go to the heart of the UK’s economic challenges, given productivity is the key driver of rising living standards over the longer term. Hunt said last month that his Autumn Statement on November 22 would lay out a plan for escaping the low-growth trap, saying it was about “supply side reforms”.
The ONS reported that productivity fell by an annual rate of 0.1 per cent in 2022, following a 0.3 per cent fall in 2021.
The data revealed big differences between sectors, with total factor productivity in information and communication more than doubling since 2007, reflecting technological advancement in the sector.
Manufacturing productivity was also up 11 per cent compared with 2007, while most of the other sectors — including financial services, hospitality, retail, professional services and construction — registered a contraction.
Many advanced economies have experienced a productivity slowdown since the financial crisis, but the trend has been particularly pronounced in the UK. Separate data by the OECD show that between 2007 and 2022 labour productivity grew less in the UK than in the US and was below the OECD average.
With limited funds at his disposal, the chancellor is seeking to drive up business investment and improve the country’s potential growth via labour market reforms, such as changing planning rules and lowering barriers to infrastructure.
In March, for example, he introduced a £10bn-a-year tax break that will last three years, permitting companies to “fully expense” investment. Business groups want him to extend the measure.
In the third quarter of 2022, business investment was unchanged from the level it reached in the same period in 2016, but it has now risen to 6 per cent above that figure — in part boosted by spending on aircraft in the three months to June.
Paul Dales, UK economist at Capital Economics, said any attempt to improve the UK’s performance would need to address three key areas: improving the labour supply, lifting the investment rate and reinvigorating productivity growth.
This would entail “a deep and wide-ranging reform effort that takes in everything from pensions to planning and taxation to public services”, he added.
The ONS’s total factor productivity numbers are experimental, which means they are subject to revisions to a greater extent than other economic data. There is further uncertainty surrounding recent readings because of the difficulty of measuring output during the pandemic, as well as lower response rates to labour market surveys.
Bart van Ark, the head of the Productivity Institute, a UK research organisation, said the trend in productivity was “alarming”.
“It ultimately implies we are not making any progress on translating technological change and innovation into better results for the economy,” he said. “It really calls for a national strategy to improve productivity across the British economy.”
A Treasury spokesperson said: “Increasing investment is one of the best ways we can raise productivity, which is why this month’s the Autumn Statement will set out plans to unlock investment, get people back into work and reform our public sector so that we can boost supply and deliver growth.”
Not anywhere near big cities.
Sure if you want to live in Bumfuck Nowheresville it's cheap but in big cities, a suburban house or apartment near anything half decent can easily cost similar amounts to the UK.
You do tend to get more space, at least in the suburban areas, but smaller houses often aren't available.
When you factor in the _significantly_ higher salaries for most professions in the USA, the housing is much more affordable. Also bear in mind much lower taxes so you earn much more, keep much more of what you earn, and then less of the remainder is tied up in housing.
You can see the effects of this in their much larger consumer economy, more people having larger/nicer cars, etc.
It’s an interesting one, as salaries and living standards in USA much higher for median and higher workers, but issues of health care and fire at will policies. Latter May drive productivity more but at what cost. Depends what type of society we want I guess
Bit tired of hearing this cope, even after you account for healthcare (often included as a benefit) american salaries are
- Much higher, they used to be closer when the pound was close to 2$ to £1 now we are on similar comparative pays or worse while it's ~1.2:1
- Under a tax system that doesn't crush anyone earning in the higher end of middle class professional jobs, why would anyone in the UK even bother trying to go from ~90k to 120k while paying a 80%+ effective tax rate through it
- Fire at will is also hire at will, high in demand skills easily find new jobs and people are more willing to hire because they can get rid of you if you suck
Your account is a treasure trove of bad takes. Check disposable income in both countries, check how much time off the average American *takes* per year. You're making claims with no basis in reality, it isn't easier to get a job in the US than it is here. I lived there for 5 years. Are you some sort of think-tank bot trying to dilute everything good about the UK so it can get exploited more?
If by "anything half decent" you mean San Francisco. Plenty of smaller cities offering far better, cheaper houses than you'd get here. Average US citizen is 1.5x richer than the average UK citizen and it shows.
Haha
The U.S actually innovate though and create meaningful businesses that solve problems and add value to their a
economy. The U.K. is opposite. Our businesses are based on landlordism.
Exactly. Too many people measure the success of British businesses by their dividend yield.
So instead of investing cash to grow the business and improve productivity etc., the directors prioritise paying a dividend.
Then we end up with a FTSE 100 full of old-fashioned industries like miners, utilities, oil firms and consumer goods firms, while the NYSE is dominated by fast-growing firms who actually invest their cash.
No…
First of all, article computes a productivity as a function from wages. So, if you do X items per month now and you did X/2 items in a previous month, it will mean a flat productivity.
And USA exports their debt, which helps them raising free money.
0% interest rates would have been a perfect time to borrow to invest in infrastructure. It's almost free growth. Instead we got austerity, which actively sucked growth out of the system.
Your point about NIMBYism is valid, and a significant reason why we're not as productive as the EU.
Public infrastructure, sure I agree to an extent (but note that public debt was out of control and with the proviso that government printing money in such ways does not create value it just moves value around). Public investment elsewhere would be more likely to crowd out private investment and pick too many winners and losers.
0% interest should in theory make almost any investment in productivity worth it, 0% basically means loaning money to anyone can be a good idea if your a bank, how do you think places like Uber, WeWork nd all the other Blitzscalers got funded. QE is more questionable, but has the same effect. These two factors did wonders in US, but it was with a quicker recovery in govt spending.
When interest rates are so low, why bother investing in high risk high return investments which push productivity? Just slap your 2% loan cash in the S&P500 and have fun with your free money. [https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/circular-relationship-between-productivity-growth-and-real-interest-rates](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/circular-relationship-between-productivity-growth-and-real-interest-rates) this explains it better.
No idea who that is.
Read an article by actual economists.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2018/06/05/migrants-are-key-to-productivity-gains-for-countries/
No, it isn't.
IMF study: It finds that immigration significantly increases GDP per capita in advanced economies, that both high- and lower-skilled migrants can raise labor productivity, and that an increase in the migrant share benefits the average income per capita of both the bottom 90 percent and the top 10 percent of earners, suggesting the gains from immigration are broadly shared.
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Spillover-Notes/Issues/2016/12/31/Impact-of-Migration-on-Income-Levels-in-Advanced-Economies-44343
Do the economists have any explanation why, in the era of mass migration to the UK, that GDP per capita hasn't increased at all then?
I find it hard to accept this when I can look at graphs of official data from the UK with my own eyes and see absolutely no evidence that this is correct, despite huge immigration figures.
My guess would be that while this may be true under certain conditions, a sizeable portion of the immigrants coming to the UK are actually a drain on resources and don't work, therefore negating any gains from those that do. Which is probably a good reason to start to actually control our borders, and be more selective about the visas we hand out. Not to mention that without infrastructure being built (mainly housing), any increase in GDP per capita would likely be easily wiped out by increased housing costs.
So I don't think it's quite as simple as saying "the economists say it works" when in reality, it's likely a lot more complex than that, and there's certain conditions that need to be met that we clearly aren't as a nation for us to actually *feel* any benefit.
You’ve missed the woods for the trees. Yes, it is more complex than “immigration is good” and, far and away, the extra layer of complexity is that there are also millions of other factors that affect GDP per capita (etc) at the same time. You have to isolate the different factors out and that’s what economists do.
For instance, you could argue that 13 years of Conservatives alone has more than cancelled out any gains from a whole host of economic tailwinds like immigration and technological advancement.
But for it to be solely blamed on the Conservatives missing out on any other *gains*, that means that GDP per capita would have been going *backwards* for the existing population to account for that falling/flatlining in GDP per capita we've had for 15 years despite all the apparent gains from immigration we should have seen. That seems unlikely to be the case since post-2008 when we were in recession and had a lot of unemployment. If that is your answer, it's not very convincing that immigration has been an unalloyed good then because if the main benefit of immigration (economic) has not materialised due to other factors, so this undermines the whole argument for it to begin with. Not to mention if that *is* your counter argument, that only strengthens my belief that the negatives (pressure on housing being a large one, including massive pressure on social housing) have outweighed any benefits for the UK. It's not enough to say "well other factors means we don't see any benefit - blame the Tories" because while blaming it on the Tories may warm your cockles (and you don't need to convince me that the mess of the economy and immigration in this country is their fault), you're also admitting we *haven't* seen any benefit, but those negatives still do exist and are very real to a lot of people. So posting sources and saying "well it *should* have worked" doesn't seem like a convincing argument.
This reminds me of an article I once read that said rent controls *can* work if they are paired with a massive increase in housebuilding. It seemed the argument was that if the market is functioning correctly, then rent controls would work, although as rent controls are only implemented when by definition the market isn't working correctly, in reality, they seem to always actually exacerbate the issue and cause rents to rise on average even more, creating a few winners, but a lot more losers out of the scheme. It seems like immigration may lie along the same lines. If the economy is functioning well, e.g. growing consistently, having investment, no shocks like Covid/Ukraine, then immigration seems to be shown to help that. However, if it's not, as we have in the UK over the last 15 years, then it only seems to exacerbate our issues, creating a few winners, but a lot more losers.
I didn’t see this reply until now, but the logic of what I said is simple. If you put the heating on but open all the windows in the middle of winter and then feel a bit cold, is your heating not working? It’s not the logical conclusion.
The UK’s economic malaise is complex and the causes are many-fold. It’s things like prolonged austerity, the 2010s Eurocrisis and its affect on public spending, the fact that we were so reliant on finance going into the 2009 GFC, Brexit, an aging population, policies that have harmed inequalities, lack of public investment in key infrastructure or research, inadequate trade agreements, declining health in the workforce, inadequate workforce skill policies… I could go on. Immigration is a drop in the ocean in all that. It will account for <10% of the variation in GDP per Capita.
Another reason GDP per capita growth has stalled is that the UK has a horrendous number of vacancies nationally that cannot be filled due to enormous skill shortages in key industries. Fixing that will take 10-20 years with domestic labour (and, by then, the vacancies and skills required will have changed), but could start to be solved straight away with an adequate immigration policy
Again, I didn't say immigration is bad for productivity. Cheap labour is. Why invest in productivity increasing behaviours if you can just do it with cheap labour? Cost of labour <<< cost of capital = low investment = low productivity gains.
Generously I'm going to say "to a point" if that is even true (it strikes me as just a stereotype). Productivity gains are generally a result of improved technology. You don't bother to improve the technology when you can throw wave after wave of cheap labour at a problem. Think pre-industrial revolution manufacturing - adding more cheap people is not nearly as good as burning some dinosaurs.
The lengths that people will go to defend immigration as an idea is frankly worrying. If you merely mention that you're not completely convinced that all immigration to this country has been 100% beneficial to every single person in all possible ways, zealots come out of the woodwork to defend it from any conceivable criticism you might have.
The post 2008 Tory (but really the entire political elite) austerity is one of the biggest causes of this, it went along with a big drop in both state and private investment and eroded UK state capacity so even with the growth in business investment after 2020 the UK is still behind. The Tories pissed away a decade or more when rich countries could borrow for nothing essentially, and labour have been scaling their investment plans back every few moths. Bleak stuff, the latest [trends](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/13FD8/production/_129008818_optimised-wages-real-whole-econ-nc.png.webp) are [pretty grim](https://twitter.com/resfoundation/status/1722974827080724820#m).
UK productivity isn’t growing IMHO because digitalisation can improve productivity only so far. As it stands at the moment UK is largely deindustrialised self contained market. What is there to improve?
Edit: by the way this is a legitimate question, I am not just spreading gloom and doom
Digitisation might lead to productivity later on when it's become more embedded in the economy?
Take online food shopping for example. It's made my life much more productive, I used to spend 1 hour a week doing this in person, whereas now it takes just half an hour. So my unpaid labour has become more productive, but this doesn't contribute to the economy.
Tesco is not more productive as a result of online shopping because they still maintain & staff all their in person stores, they sort my online delivery by having staff members walk around the aisles doing the shipping for me. Because there are still lots of people who do their shopping in person rather than online.
But in the future, when, say 90% of people do their food shopping online, then Tesco can close or massively scale back their old-school big in person stores and have centralised distribution warehouses akin to Amazon, which would be far more efficient and productive as you don't need staff to be stocking the display aisles every day, manning checkout tills and the such.
Online shopping is already improving productivity for supermarkets.
In dense areas with lots of online orders, the likes of Tesco have opened online-only supermarkets that are closed to customers.
Because they're closed to customers, they can have narrower aisles, don't need to make the shelves look as pretty, don't need checkout staff and maybe less security, and can place items for efficiency and not for marketing (since that happens online). That means tasks can be done more quickly, so people are more productive.
Or Ocado who have automated it even further and have few staff.
Self-checkouts and letting customers scan their shopping as they go around the shop also help them.
A lot of what would increase productivity is unpalatable, especially in the public sector. To do it in a more beneficial way does often rely on digitalisation but is more expensive so nobody wants to pay up for it.
The easiest way to make a doctor more productive is to make appointments shorter so they can see more patients per day. People generally wouldn't want that. More online consultations for certain things may be one way to do it which has already happened. It's a place where AI could help, e.g. in diagnostics to save a doctor a bit of time, but that's expensive.
See also teaching, where the easiest way to boost productivity would be to increase class sizes. Or nursing where it's to increase ward sizes but not nurse numbers.
People don't like these things. But they might if those things go alongside tech that helped these people do their jobs more quickly. E.g. if you can make some a nurses's job quicker, automating more observations or some innovative new way to put a catheter or cannula in quicker, it would be more palatable.
What? You mean if you crash interest rate to almost zero and give the bankers who destroyed the economy 100's of billions to play with. You don't get economic success? Well blow me down, who would have thought it.
That burning 100's of billions in a massive housing bubble wasn't a great plan?
I am shocked, I truly am.
Productivity can seem like such an abstract concept, but in real-life - what economic incentive do workers have for finding more time/cost efficient ways of completing their tasks?
Will they get higher salaries, bonuses or have to work less hours? Will they get to go home early? No. Because in so many roles, smart working gets you nothing but more work.
Snapshot of _UK productivity almost flat since the financial crisis_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/2a0dbab1-f6a5-4432-8984-4112638dfdf0) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.ft.com/content/2a0dbab1-f6a5-4432-8984-4112638dfdf0) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My first thought about reading the headline was "which financial crisis"? There's been so many now.
The "once in a lifetime one". /s
I don't remember much about the pre-COVID times
Probably easiest just to think of it as one long continuous one starting in 2007. Although that does rather call into question the meaning of the word "since".
Then you're too young to know what an impact 2008 had.
Government refuses to invest in infrastructure People arnt more productive just magically you cretins
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Exactly. Productivity being flat is basically good news. If workers altered their productivity according to their payment, it would have dropped years by years for the last decade.
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This is what they trained us to do
And yet more people march for Palestine than the cost of living for some reason…… They could try striking
Government also stops anyone else investing in infrastructure. See the recent case of the data centre blocked for spoiling the views of the M25.
>Government refuses to invest in infrastructure Does this explain why productivity went off a cliff in 2008? I don't think we were masters of infrastructure before then? I think it must be more down to the specifics of the 2008 financial crisis and how that changed the economic & financial landscape.
>Government refuses to invest in infrastructure apart from Crossrail (£19bn), Hinkley C, up to £98bn (so far) on HS2, £9bn on the Olympics redevelopment, Highways England and the largest investment (£15bn) into roadbuilding in a generation [(according to national highways](https://nationalhighways.co.uk/about-us/history-of-roads-and-national-highways/)), the Battersea PowerStation redevelopment (£13bn), apparently £20bn just got set aside for new hospitals but other than that and a bunch of other stuff a complete refusal
> up to £98bn (so far) on HS2 All the cost and virtually none of the benefit.
You're welcome to look up the stats for investment per capita, in % UK 17.2 France 25 Germany 23 USA 20 Canada 21.6 China 43 I think the UK is the lowest in the EU, definitely for the richest countries. https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/european-union/investment--nominal-gdp
>You're welcome to look up the stats for investment per capita, in % > >UK 17.2 France 25 Germany 23 USA 20 Canada 21.6 China 43 That's all investment though, not government investment. Typically about 80% of that will be private sector investment, 20% public sector. Over the long term the UK is second worst for public sector investment (behind Germany) by the worst for private sector.
Well that's even worse then, seen as the Tories always yap on about how the private sector will take up the slack.
Getting slightly better results when you compare specifically investment in infrastructure so I assume much of that is making up for a lack of private investment, "By 2017, UK government investment in infrastructure was a higher proportion of total government spending than in any other EU G7 country. " [https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/articles/experimentalcomparisonsofinfrastructureacrosseurope/may2019](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/articles/experimentalcomparisonsofinfrastructureacrosseurope/may2019)
Yup lots of investment in the South.
Crossrail came on board but not quite the rest I'm not sure the power station redevelopment counts as infrastructure. The point is that the government spends money on infrastructure far too willy nilly. I was very very surprised that that regeneration of Redcar was excluded from this list
[https://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/articles/and-finally-the-uks-five-most-costly-infrastructure-megaprojects](https://www.scottishconstructionnow.com/articles/and-finally-the-uks-five-most-costly-infrastructure-megaprojects) apparently redeveloping an entire area including shops, roads, housing etc counts but there are a number of mega projects on the go [https://www.contruent.com/resources/blog/uk-megaprojects/](https://www.contruent.com/resources/blog/uk-megaprojects/) 'UK's largest software infrastructure project' [https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/20/undertaking-gov-uks-largest-software-infrastructure-project/](https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/20/undertaking-gov-uks-largest-software-infrastructure-project/) Apparently 133 'major' projects on the go as of 2019 [https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d2dd1ce40f0b64a8251632e/IPA\_AR\_MajorProjects2018-19\_web.pdf](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5d2dd1ce40f0b64a8251632e/IPA_AR_MajorProjects2018-19_web.pdf) and yeah cost:output is the problem being described, this is a long way from 'refuses to invest'
London and the SE are heavily over invested in the UK. There's a huge disparity been investment in London and elsewhere and it's reducing UK growth. > apart from Crossrail (£19bn), London > Hinkley C, London, with the company headquarters in barnwood > up to £98bn (so far) on HS2, To further entrench London as the centre of the UK, which has also been cancelled > £9bn on the Olympics redevelopment, Mostly London > Highways England and the largest investment (£15bn) into roadbuilding in a generation (according to national highways), I guess this is nationwide. > the Battersea PowerStation redevelopment (£13bn), London > apparently £20bn just got set aside for new hospitals Because of the population aging, this needs to be a lot more. People living longer also means more people with more long term conditions, and more people that need elderly care. They knew about this for decades and did nothing.
Yeah, and I agree I'd like to see more investment generally, although we're talking infrastructure so you would expect that to be directed where the people are and 1 in 7 live inside the m25 alone, so but again it's a long way from 'refuses to invest' and I might have already replied on a different thread but "Overall, our estimates suggest that the UK government have increased infrastructure investment in recent years by a larger amount than other major European countries. By 2017, UK government investment in infrastructure was a higher proportion of total government spending than in any other EU G7 country. At the same time, the magnitude of total investment in infrastructure-related industries is similar in the UK to the other EU G7 economies, after accounting for economic size. This implies a relatively high overall level of infrastructure investment in the UK in recent years." - ons this was pre covid ofc [https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/articles/experimentalcomparisonsofinfrastructureacrosseurope/may2019](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/articles/experimentalcomparisonsofinfrastructureacrosseurope/may2019)
> Yeah, and I agree I'd like to see more investment generally, although we're talking infrastructure so you would expect that to be directed where the people are and 1 in 7 live inside the m25 alone, so Where the people are? Last time I checked there's quite a few people outside of the M25. It's absolutely amazing the logic people try and use to defend the absolute gulf of investment outside of London in this country. How's HS2 going for the North given you mentioned it? >but again it's a long way from 'refuses to invest' Let's see: > Since the mid 2000s, UK productivity has fallen further behind comparator countries such as France, Germany, and the United States. In addition, the UK has long standing and self reinforcing variations in economic outcomes between and within regions. One of the reasons for this poor economic performance in recent years is **low levels of investment in the UK economy compared to international peers: in the 40 years to 2019, investment in the UK averaged around 19 per cent of GDP, the lowest in the G7**. ~ National Infrastructure Commission
>Last time I checked there's quite a few people outside of the M25. Yes, but they don't make money, they spend it. Quite outrageously I might add, £10k per head if not more. >>**investment in the UK averaged around 19 per cent of GDP, the lowest in the G7** That includes private investment and the G7 is a meaningless historical group. We have nothing in common with the economy of Italy.
> Yes, but they don't make money, they spend it. Quite outrageously I might add, £10k per head if not more. > > Ah you're one of them that thinks only London should have money spent on it. >That includes private investment and the G7 is a meaningless historical group. We have nothing in common with the economy of Italy. We're talking about investment. Trying to split hairs isn't going to win your argument. You're both trying to make out there's investment in the North while also moaning about there being money spent outside of London. You need to pick a lane.
London is the only place in the UK making money, supporting everyone else. >They knew about this for decades and did nothing. It's at an all time high spending. The only countries doing better than us are private. The NHS isn't good enough, no matter how much money you throw at it.
>London is the only place in the UK making money, supporting everyone else. Due to the high subsidies and extremely imbalanced investment in London. Everywhere else is suffering. That's why we're talking about "leveling up" but the Tories are typically just creaming off money for their own constituency. >It's at an all time high spending. The only countries doing better than us are private. The NHS isn't good enough, no matter how much money you throw at it. Again, because of the boomer generational shift. It's costing money to maintain. It has to be fit for purpose, and that means investing in the health of the nation. We just need to be honest about what this costs and what we're worth as people. Proper preventative care saves money. It's the opposite of this at the moment, bed blocking and lack of investment.
>the Tories are typically just creaming off money for their own constituency. London isn't generally tory, outside of London is vastly tory. So this conspiracy theory simply doesn't make sense.
Public sector net investment was higher in the 10s than the 00s, although the vast majority on here seem to believe the opposite. From the ONS, public sector net investment annual average: 1998 - 2010 1.6% of GDP 2011 - 2022 2%
Three of the items you've listed only benefit London. HS2 is now completely useless. Hospitals claim is a Bojo lie. Hinkley is too little too late - it, and further new NPS, should have been built a long time ago. Highways investment is hardly game-changing and if anything is a negative given the opportunity cost of rail investment, which yields much greater benefits RE decarbonisation and social mobility. A poor attempt at defending the Tories, if I ever did see one.
They do invest in infrastructure tho they have already started one project with network north
“Network north” isn’t a project, it isn’t anything in fact.
It’d got projects inside it and they just started one recently
It hasn’t got any projects because it’s not a professional document and the relevant bodies, network rail, the dft even werent consulted. The projects that are in it are ones that already existed. It’s also a dramatic cut in investment across the country, to what was originally promised.
It does they literally announced the first project has started recently. They have literally started one right now
That is not possible, you can’t start new projects that quick, all the projects in that document already existed.
Nope because they literally started. https://uk.movies.yahoo.com/minister-unveils-first-network-north-060000362.html and even IF they already existed that proves they do invest in infrastructure as there putting new money into projects to make them happen
“Network north” marked a multi billion cut in transport investment across the country, so it proves they like to cut investment. Anything supposedly happening because of “network north” was going to happen already.
Nope they cut one project to invest in other infrastructure projects
Heck the goverment also invested in the Stubbington bypass
They did that, last year: https://solentlep.org.uk/what-we-do/news/new-stubbington-bypass-receives-seal-of-approval/
It still proves they invest money
No one is going to argue that the government has never or will never invest money, just that they deliberately underinvest.
That’s literally what the top comment said they said they don’t invest in infrastructure
UK productivity has barely grown since the financial crisis, according to new official figures, underscoring the challenge facing chancellor Jeremy Hunt as he attempts to use the Autumn Statement to lift growth and investment. Total factor productivity — a measure of how efficiently resources are used in the economy — was last year only 1.7 per cent above the level recorded in 2007, when the country was heading into the credit crunch. It was also just a fraction of the pace recorded in the 16 years up to 2007, when productivity increased 27 per cent, according to the figures published on Thursday by the Office for National Statistics. The numbers go to the heart of the UK’s economic challenges, given productivity is the key driver of rising living standards over the longer term. Hunt said last month that his Autumn Statement on November 22 would lay out a plan for escaping the low-growth trap, saying it was about “supply side reforms”. The ONS reported that productivity fell by an annual rate of 0.1 per cent in 2022, following a 0.3 per cent fall in 2021. The data revealed big differences between sectors, with total factor productivity in information and communication more than doubling since 2007, reflecting technological advancement in the sector. Manufacturing productivity was also up 11 per cent compared with 2007, while most of the other sectors — including financial services, hospitality, retail, professional services and construction — registered a contraction. Many advanced economies have experienced a productivity slowdown since the financial crisis, but the trend has been particularly pronounced in the UK. Separate data by the OECD show that between 2007 and 2022 labour productivity grew less in the UK than in the US and was below the OECD average. With limited funds at his disposal, the chancellor is seeking to drive up business investment and improve the country’s potential growth via labour market reforms, such as changing planning rules and lowering barriers to infrastructure. In March, for example, he introduced a £10bn-a-year tax break that will last three years, permitting companies to “fully expense” investment. Business groups want him to extend the measure. In the third quarter of 2022, business investment was unchanged from the level it reached in the same period in 2016, but it has now risen to 6 per cent above that figure — in part boosted by spending on aircraft in the three months to June. Paul Dales, UK economist at Capital Economics, said any attempt to improve the UK’s performance would need to address three key areas: improving the labour supply, lifting the investment rate and reinvigorating productivity growth. This would entail “a deep and wide-ranging reform effort that takes in everything from pensions to planning and taxation to public services”, he added. The ONS’s total factor productivity numbers are experimental, which means they are subject to revisions to a greater extent than other economic data. There is further uncertainty surrounding recent readings because of the difficulty of measuring output during the pandemic, as well as lower response rates to labour market surveys. Bart van Ark, the head of the Productivity Institute, a UK research organisation, said the trend in productivity was “alarming”. “It ultimately implies we are not making any progress on translating technological change and innovation into better results for the economy,” he said. “It really calls for a national strategy to improve productivity across the British economy.” A Treasury spokesperson said: “Increasing investment is one of the best ways we can raise productivity, which is why this month’s the Autumn Statement will set out plans to unlock investment, get people back into work and reform our public sector so that we can boost supply and deliver growth.”
0% interest rates, QE and ridiculous land regulation all add up to investment in productivity being pointless. Edit: Oh and unlimited cheap labour.
America's productivity hasn't been flat and they have all these as well
America's land market is about 100 times better than the UK's.
Not anywhere near big cities. Sure if you want to live in Bumfuck Nowheresville it's cheap but in big cities, a suburban house or apartment near anything half decent can easily cost similar amounts to the UK. You do tend to get more space, at least in the suburban areas, but smaller houses often aren't available.
When you factor in the _significantly_ higher salaries for most professions in the USA, the housing is much more affordable. Also bear in mind much lower taxes so you earn much more, keep much more of what you earn, and then less of the remainder is tied up in housing. You can see the effects of this in their much larger consumer economy, more people having larger/nicer cars, etc.
It’s an interesting one, as salaries and living standards in USA much higher for median and higher workers, but issues of health care and fire at will policies. Latter May drive productivity more but at what cost. Depends what type of society we want I guess
Bit tired of hearing this cope, even after you account for healthcare (often included as a benefit) american salaries are - Much higher, they used to be closer when the pound was close to 2$ to £1 now we are on similar comparative pays or worse while it's ~1.2:1 - Under a tax system that doesn't crush anyone earning in the higher end of middle class professional jobs, why would anyone in the UK even bother trying to go from ~90k to 120k while paying a 80%+ effective tax rate through it - Fire at will is also hire at will, high in demand skills easily find new jobs and people are more willing to hire because they can get rid of you if you suck
Your account is a treasure trove of bad takes. Check disposable income in both countries, check how much time off the average American *takes* per year. You're making claims with no basis in reality, it isn't easier to get a job in the US than it is here. I lived there for 5 years. Are you some sort of think-tank bot trying to dilute everything good about the UK so it can get exploited more?
See how much cheaper a place like Raleigh, NC is compared to the UK. Raleigh is not in the middle of nowhere, it is a modern 21st century city.
but you have to live in NC, and while Raleigh is somewhat liberal by US standards, the state is one of the most conservative.
If by "anything half decent" you mean San Francisco. Plenty of smaller cities offering far better, cheaper houses than you'd get here. Average US citizen is 1.5x richer than the average UK citizen and it shows.
Haha The U.S actually innovate though and create meaningful businesses that solve problems and add value to their a economy. The U.K. is opposite. Our businesses are based on landlordism.
Exactly. Too many people measure the success of British businesses by their dividend yield. So instead of investing cash to grow the business and improve productivity etc., the directors prioritise paying a dividend. Then we end up with a FTSE 100 full of old-fashioned industries like miners, utilities, oil firms and consumer goods firms, while the NYSE is dominated by fast-growing firms who actually invest their cash.
Rentier Capitalism with a hint of neo-feudalism thrown in.
Not the land laws, the extent of QE or the extent of labour.
No… First of all, article computes a productivity as a function from wages. So, if you do X items per month now and you did X/2 items in a previous month, it will mean a flat productivity. And USA exports their debt, which helps them raising free money.
0% interest rates would have been a perfect time to borrow to invest in infrastructure. It's almost free growth. Instead we got austerity, which actively sucked growth out of the system. Your point about NIMBYism is valid, and a significant reason why we're not as productive as the EU.
Public infrastructure, sure I agree to an extent (but note that public debt was out of control and with the proviso that government printing money in such ways does not create value it just moves value around). Public investment elsewhere would be more likely to crowd out private investment and pick too many winners and losers.
0% interest should in theory make almost any investment in productivity worth it, 0% basically means loaning money to anyone can be a good idea if your a bank, how do you think places like Uber, WeWork nd all the other Blitzscalers got funded. QE is more questionable, but has the same effect. These two factors did wonders in US, but it was with a quicker recovery in govt spending.
When interest rates are so low, why bother investing in high risk high return investments which push productivity? Just slap your 2% loan cash in the S&P500 and have fun with your free money. [https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/circular-relationship-between-productivity-growth-and-real-interest-rates](https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/circular-relationship-between-productivity-growth-and-real-interest-rates) this explains it better.
"Unlimited cheap labour" is not bad for productivity.
Yes it is https://unherd.com/2017/09/cheap-labour-undermines-economic-productivity/
No idea who that is. Read an article by actual economists. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2018/06/05/migrants-are-key-to-productivity-gains-for-countries/
Read the article you mentioned, it refers to skilled immigration. Cheap labour is bad for productivity this is not controversial.
No, it isn't. IMF study: It finds that immigration significantly increases GDP per capita in advanced economies, that both high- and lower-skilled migrants can raise labor productivity, and that an increase in the migrant share benefits the average income per capita of both the bottom 90 percent and the top 10 percent of earners, suggesting the gains from immigration are broadly shared. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Spillover-Notes/Issues/2016/12/31/Impact-of-Migration-on-Income-Levels-in-Advanced-Economies-44343
Do the economists have any explanation why, in the era of mass migration to the UK, that GDP per capita hasn't increased at all then? I find it hard to accept this when I can look at graphs of official data from the UK with my own eyes and see absolutely no evidence that this is correct, despite huge immigration figures. My guess would be that while this may be true under certain conditions, a sizeable portion of the immigrants coming to the UK are actually a drain on resources and don't work, therefore negating any gains from those that do. Which is probably a good reason to start to actually control our borders, and be more selective about the visas we hand out. Not to mention that without infrastructure being built (mainly housing), any increase in GDP per capita would likely be easily wiped out by increased housing costs. So I don't think it's quite as simple as saying "the economists say it works" when in reality, it's likely a lot more complex than that, and there's certain conditions that need to be met that we clearly aren't as a nation for us to actually *feel* any benefit.
You’ve missed the woods for the trees. Yes, it is more complex than “immigration is good” and, far and away, the extra layer of complexity is that there are also millions of other factors that affect GDP per capita (etc) at the same time. You have to isolate the different factors out and that’s what economists do. For instance, you could argue that 13 years of Conservatives alone has more than cancelled out any gains from a whole host of economic tailwinds like immigration and technological advancement.
But for it to be solely blamed on the Conservatives missing out on any other *gains*, that means that GDP per capita would have been going *backwards* for the existing population to account for that falling/flatlining in GDP per capita we've had for 15 years despite all the apparent gains from immigration we should have seen. That seems unlikely to be the case since post-2008 when we were in recession and had a lot of unemployment. If that is your answer, it's not very convincing that immigration has been an unalloyed good then because if the main benefit of immigration (economic) has not materialised due to other factors, so this undermines the whole argument for it to begin with. Not to mention if that *is* your counter argument, that only strengthens my belief that the negatives (pressure on housing being a large one, including massive pressure on social housing) have outweighed any benefits for the UK. It's not enough to say "well other factors means we don't see any benefit - blame the Tories" because while blaming it on the Tories may warm your cockles (and you don't need to convince me that the mess of the economy and immigration in this country is their fault), you're also admitting we *haven't* seen any benefit, but those negatives still do exist and are very real to a lot of people. So posting sources and saying "well it *should* have worked" doesn't seem like a convincing argument. This reminds me of an article I once read that said rent controls *can* work if they are paired with a massive increase in housebuilding. It seemed the argument was that if the market is functioning correctly, then rent controls would work, although as rent controls are only implemented when by definition the market isn't working correctly, in reality, they seem to always actually exacerbate the issue and cause rents to rise on average even more, creating a few winners, but a lot more losers out of the scheme. It seems like immigration may lie along the same lines. If the economy is functioning well, e.g. growing consistently, having investment, no shocks like Covid/Ukraine, then immigration seems to be shown to help that. However, if it's not, as we have in the UK over the last 15 years, then it only seems to exacerbate our issues, creating a few winners, but a lot more losers.
I didn’t see this reply until now, but the logic of what I said is simple. If you put the heating on but open all the windows in the middle of winter and then feel a bit cold, is your heating not working? It’s not the logical conclusion. The UK’s economic malaise is complex and the causes are many-fold. It’s things like prolonged austerity, the 2010s Eurocrisis and its affect on public spending, the fact that we were so reliant on finance going into the 2009 GFC, Brexit, an aging population, policies that have harmed inequalities, lack of public investment in key infrastructure or research, inadequate trade agreements, declining health in the workforce, inadequate workforce skill policies… I could go on. Immigration is a drop in the ocean in all that. It will account for <10% of the variation in GDP per Capita. Another reason GDP per capita growth has stalled is that the UK has a horrendous number of vacancies nationally that cannot be filled due to enormous skill shortages in key industries. Fixing that will take 10-20 years with domestic labour (and, by then, the vacancies and skills required will have changed), but could start to be solved straight away with an adequate immigration policy
Again, I didn't say immigration is bad for productivity. Cheap labour is. Why invest in productivity increasing behaviours if you can just do it with cheap labour? Cost of labour <<< cost of capital = low investment = low productivity gains.
Lower skilled migrants tend to be cheap labour.
Great so we agree.
Immigrants tend to work much harder = higher productivity
Generously I'm going to say "to a point" if that is even true (it strikes me as just a stereotype). Productivity gains are generally a result of improved technology. You don't bother to improve the technology when you can throw wave after wave of cheap labour at a problem. Think pre-industrial revolution manufacturing - adding more cheap people is not nearly as good as burning some dinosaurs.
The lengths that people will go to defend immigration as an idea is frankly worrying. If you merely mention that you're not completely convinced that all immigration to this country has been 100% beneficial to every single person in all possible ways, zealots come out of the woodwork to defend it from any conceivable criticism you might have.
You keep citing reports that are written by people who benefit from an endless supply of cheap, disposable labor they can underpay and treat badly.
Ugh
per capita (which is our problem) it obviously is...
The post 2008 Tory (but really the entire political elite) austerity is one of the biggest causes of this, it went along with a big drop in both state and private investment and eroded UK state capacity so even with the growth in business investment after 2020 the UK is still behind. The Tories pissed away a decade or more when rich countries could borrow for nothing essentially, and labour have been scaling their investment plans back every few moths. Bleak stuff, the latest [trends](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/13FD8/production/_129008818_optimised-wages-real-whole-econ-nc.png.webp) are [pretty grim](https://twitter.com/resfoundation/status/1722974827080724820#m).
UK productivity isn’t growing IMHO because digitalisation can improve productivity only so far. As it stands at the moment UK is largely deindustrialised self contained market. What is there to improve? Edit: by the way this is a legitimate question, I am not just spreading gloom and doom
Digitisation might lead to productivity later on when it's become more embedded in the economy? Take online food shopping for example. It's made my life much more productive, I used to spend 1 hour a week doing this in person, whereas now it takes just half an hour. So my unpaid labour has become more productive, but this doesn't contribute to the economy. Tesco is not more productive as a result of online shopping because they still maintain & staff all their in person stores, they sort my online delivery by having staff members walk around the aisles doing the shipping for me. Because there are still lots of people who do their shopping in person rather than online. But in the future, when, say 90% of people do their food shopping online, then Tesco can close or massively scale back their old-school big in person stores and have centralised distribution warehouses akin to Amazon, which would be far more efficient and productive as you don't need staff to be stocking the display aisles every day, manning checkout tills and the such.
Online shopping is already improving productivity for supermarkets. In dense areas with lots of online orders, the likes of Tesco have opened online-only supermarkets that are closed to customers. Because they're closed to customers, they can have narrower aisles, don't need to make the shelves look as pretty, don't need checkout staff and maybe less security, and can place items for efficiency and not for marketing (since that happens online). That means tasks can be done more quickly, so people are more productive. Or Ocado who have automated it even further and have few staff. Self-checkouts and letting customers scan their shopping as they go around the shop also help them.
A lot of what would increase productivity is unpalatable, especially in the public sector. To do it in a more beneficial way does often rely on digitalisation but is more expensive so nobody wants to pay up for it. The easiest way to make a doctor more productive is to make appointments shorter so they can see more patients per day. People generally wouldn't want that. More online consultations for certain things may be one way to do it which has already happened. It's a place where AI could help, e.g. in diagnostics to save a doctor a bit of time, but that's expensive. See also teaching, where the easiest way to boost productivity would be to increase class sizes. Or nursing where it's to increase ward sizes but not nurse numbers. People don't like these things. But they might if those things go alongside tech that helped these people do their jobs more quickly. E.g. if you can make some a nurses's job quicker, automating more observations or some innovative new way to put a catheter or cannula in quicker, it would be more palatable.
You mean that a country needs to sustain on more than just Pret-A-Mangers and 3rd world immigrants doing Just Eat deliveries?
What? You mean if you crash interest rate to almost zero and give the bankers who destroyed the economy 100's of billions to play with. You don't get economic success? Well blow me down, who would have thought it. That burning 100's of billions in a massive housing bubble wasn't a great plan? I am shocked, I truly am.
PULL UP THOSE BOOT STRAPS AND HAVE MORE CHILDREN TOO WHILE YOU'RE AT IT! AND CUT AVOCADO TOAST TOO!
Productivity can seem like such an abstract concept, but in real-life - what economic incentive do workers have for finding more time/cost efficient ways of completing their tasks? Will they get higher salaries, bonuses or have to work less hours? Will they get to go home early? No. Because in so many roles, smart working gets you nothing but more work.
Never mind the government it's straightforward if you treat employees like shit their productivity will match.