I read a lot of papers and articles about productivity - or more usually, about the lack of productivity. Most Western nations have had little productivity growth over the last few years. Many of these articles will make some kind of diagnosis - what has gone wrong or what needs putting right. Occasionally I
There has been much debate over the relative productivity effects of working from home (WFH) versus office-based versus hybrid working. Companies who sought to reduce property expenses by switching to WFH have generally been disappointed by the resulting productivity delivered and quite a few have tried to encourage or even insist upon return to office-based working (RTO). Employees,
It is often said- probably because it is true - that small businesses are the bedrock of a healthy economy. Business leaders know this; even leaders of large businesses, for their businesses were small once. One assumes that political leaders also know this - for they are reminded of it regularly when discussing growth strategies. Yet politicians
During the pandemic many people changed jobs - though some people also lost jobs. Quite a lot of the changes invalid a switch to a different ,location and/ or to a different industry as people sought out jobs they thought might be secure until at least after the pandemic. The situation has been rather like that
This is a statement you will often see in the UK press (and those in other countries will see similar statements with their country replacing the UK.) IBu is it true? Well, firstly the statement is normally made because someone has read the latest official productivity statistics. This shows that in the aggregate, output per worker
The UK does not have a good record on employee training and development. Compared to many other developed countries the skill levels in our workforce are low. Government incentives to train and develop employees are not strong. - and many employers are fearful about giving employees skills which increase their value to competitor organisations. "Train them
Of course it is. By its very definition, it produces. It turns out goods - often in high quantities. But does manufacturing have high productivity? Yes, it does. Over the years, manufacturing has adopted lots of new technologies - and all of these have had a positive effect on productivity… reducing the time taken to
What is the purpose of education ? Actually the question should split into: What is currently the purpose of education?. What is the purpose of future education? As fewer of us will have jobs in the future (because we cannot match the productivity of robots and AI agents), our grandchildren will not need education
Media pundits love to talk about the productivity crisis. (Well, let’s be honest, they love to talk about any crisis…. and if there isn’t a crisis to talk about, they will invent one.) The productivity crisis isn’t really a crisis. The decline and stagnation in productivity has been a general factor in the Western world for the
Poor, and declining, national productivity is a serious malaise. Not only does it mean that inflation is likely to rise - as wage rises lead to increased costs without corresponding output rises - but investment also declines). It seems ironic that firms invest more when things are going well but they do -and it’s not really very