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Productivity

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

Letter from Glen Watson, Director General for ONS, to Lord Birt, dated June 2014.

As Director General for the Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking Her Majesty’s Government what are the latest available figures on output (1) per worker, and (2) per hour worked, in the United Kingdom; and how those figures compare with the equivalents for Germany, France and the United States. (HL398)

Quarterly estimates of labour productivity in terms of output per worker and output per hour worked are published quarterly in index number form (2010=100) and as percentage changes on earlier periods. They can be found on the ONS website at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/productivity/labour-productivity/index.html

The latest estimates available are for the fourth quarter of 2013 and show the index for output per worker for the whole economy at 100.5, an increase of 1.3% on the same quarter in 2012 and unchanged from the previous quarter. The index for output per hour worked was 99.1 in the fourth quarter, an increase of 0.7% on the same quarter in 2012 and an increase of 0.3% on the previous quarter. The next publication of UK labour productivity statistics will be on 1 July. This will include estimates up to the first quarter of 2014.

Annual comparisons of labour productivity between the UK and the G7 economies in levels terms are published biannually on the ONS website at:

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/icp/international-comparisons-of-productivity/index.html

The latest estimates available are for 2012 and show output per worker in Germany, France and the United States was 11, 18 and 46 percentage points more productive respectively relative to the UK.

In terms of output per hour worked, the latest estimates show that Germany, France and the USA 31, 32 and 35 percentage points more productive respectively than the UK in 2012.

The next publication of international comparisons of productivity will be in September 2014, when first estimates for 2013 will be published.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL398; 754 cc130-1WA

Session

2014-15

Subjects

Productivity

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk