Last week we talked about productivity levels - and the conundrum about unemployment and wage levels. I suggested, as I have done several times lately, that we might need to reconsider how we measure productivity - since the measure used to compare nations uses labour productivity. But the growth of robots and other automation devices

Most of the old economic certainties have gone. For many years, the 'rule' was the as unemployment levels dropped, wages would rise (to entice workers away from others to your organisation).  Since the great 2008 financial crisis, this has not proved true.  Unemployment has dropped to the point where the UK is close to full

The UK government recently established the Productivity Leadership Group (PLG)  to try and boost the nation's productivity. The PLG says that if all except our most competitive businesses were able to improve their productivity to match the companies ranked 10 per cent above them, an additional £130bn Gross Value Added (GVA) would be unlocked every

The US has created lots of jobs since President Tump was elected.  I am sure he will take the credit - and bask in the reflected glory. President Trump should be careful, though.  America's productivity is not rising.  Any wage rises will be at the expense of inflation.  In a year's time, we may have

France takes the summer off.  many factories close down for a month while workers holiday en masse. Other European countries also take longer holidays than the UK. Yet the productivity of these countries is higher. Can anyone explain this - it is intuitive. I have voiced my doubts about the way we measure national productivity

A few of my recent posts have related to U K productivity and challenges.  This is not because the UK faces more challenges than anyone else (though Brexit is  causing some fears). The UK is going through a 'bad patch' but is at least trying to do something about it with new committees and task

f your employees were fighting in factions, arguing among themselves and failing to do what you expect them to do, would you continue to pay them?  You might - but presumably you would also initiate disciplinary procedures to try to correct such behaviours. I suspect, though, that your answer to the question is that you

UK productivity in the first quarter of 2017 was the same as it was in 2007.  This  after relentless if sometimes slow growth over many years.So, not only have we not had the bounce i refereed to last week; we seem to have had a capsize and a sinking. Successive governments seem to be powerless

The Office for National Statistics says that, had productivity in the UK returned to its pre-recession trend, it would be 20% higher than its current level. Britain would be one fifth better off. The normal pattern is that after a recession, productivity bounces back and we recover (at least most of) what we lost. However, we have

Canada's labour productivity rose 1.4% in Q1 2017. This is not a spectacular result but a solid performance. Sometimes, slow and steady progress is preferable to high gain, fall-back performance.  (Think 'tortoise and hare'.) This is exactly why continuous improvement programmes, resulting in a number of evolutionary performance gains, often beat the occasional revolutionary improvement