Why talk about productivity?

We have a clear business challenge in the UK. Productivity is a major issue for government and Philip Hammond devoted his first Budget speech as Chancellor in 2017 to addressing it.[1] Workers are no more productive now than on the eve of the financial crisis in 2008. There is a productivity gap of 15-19% between the UK and the other six members of the G7 group of nations.[2] This means for every five days a British person is at work, a German worker only has to work four days to produce the same economic output.[3] This could be costing UK families as much as £9,000 per household every ...