A NEW NORMAL?

摘要

There have been considerable column inches devoted to the UK's 'productivity puzzle' in recent months. Since the financial crisis began in 2007, UK labour productivity has been nothing short of terrible - output per hour across the economy is approximately 16% below the level implied by its pre-crisis rate of growth. Chart 1 shows this productivity gap. The UK has also fallen further behind its peers - UK workers produce just 76% as much per hour as their US counterparts, down from 81 % in 2007. This prompted the Bank of England to investigate and it recently published a paper on the subject as part of its quarterly bulletin.