July 6, 2017
UK remains stuck in stubborn low productivity trap 0
The persistently low productivity of UK workers has dropped back to pre-financial crisis levels, according to official figures. Hourly output fell 0.5 percent in the first three months of the year, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports in its latest update. At the end of 2016, productivity returned to the level seen before the 2008 recession. But it has now slipped back again and is 0.4 percent below the peak recorded at the end of 2007, according to the ONS. It was the first quarterly fall in productivity since the end of 2015, according to the ONS. Economists have consistently warned that the UK’s low productivity continues to mean it lags behind its major trading partners such as the US, France and Germany.
June 12, 2017
What will the UK General Election mean for the workplace? Some experts respond 0
by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Comment, Flexible working, Property, Workplace, Workplace design
Any residual feelings of certainty that anybody in the UK may have had about the country’s future following last year’s Brexit vote, will have had them pretty much eradicated by last Thursday’s General Election result. However, we must try to make sense of things for society and the wider economy as well as specific facets of it, such as the world of work. The whole thing looks like the pig’s ear that it is, of course. Fortunately, as some experts have already argued, there are some reasons to see some positive outcomes, including a soft (or softer) Brexit and the chance of a more positive approach to workplace rights, now that the Government needs to maintain a broader consensus. The fear or hope that the UK would lighten its already soft touch approach to workplace legislation would seem at least to be less well founded.
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