Some Trade Unions are beginning to realise the benefit of being free of the constraints placed upon the UK by the EU For example, the recent takeover of Opel/ Vauxhall by the French company PSA once would have been judged ‘a disaster’ because of expected closures and job losses: Now, the local Labour MP, Kelvin …
Category: 20. Nations
Sep 02
Regional commuter network needs development
Several top business leaders are now pushing for government development of the regions as the best way to get UK productivity out of the current doldrums, back on track and closing the gap with the rest of the G7 In particular, they focus on the need to greatly improve public transport within, not between, those …
Aug 18
Can PLG plug a big productivity gap?
Whilst investment, innovation, competition and luck all play a significant part in the performance of any organisation, public as well as private, it is its management that has the most influence The same applies at national level with government ministers And if managers and ministers, whatever their level, are to do their jobs well they …
Aug 06
MGI assess productivity puzzle
The MGI (McKinsey Global Institute), the in-house think tank of the consulting giant McKinsey & Co, opened a recent ‘discussion paper’ on the productivity puzzle afflicting the USA and other developed economies by stating: “Now, as low birth rates slow the expansion of the labour force, increasing productivity, the output we get from every hour …
Jul 31
National productivity measurement
Question: What is any manager at any level prompted to do when bombarded with the following: From the ONS (Office for National Statistics): “UK productivity has grown by just 0.5% – it has taken a decade to deliver as much productivity growth as was previously achievable in a single year” A media headline: “Britain has …
Jun 22
Political parties’ productivity plans
Productivity is the biggest peacetime issue facing all UK political parties Annual improvements are vital if living standards and average earnings are to be raised – so what did their recent manifestos say about it? Conservative party manifesto – essentially ‘to grow the national wealth pie’: Introduce a National Productivity Investment Fund – spend £23 …
Apr 25
EU to become USE?
Since the euro-based austerity crises visited on Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy – followed by the refugee crises causing Schengen alarm bells to ring loudly across most EU states – then Brexit – and now elections in France and Germany raising increasingly important national sovereignty issues there – the likelihood is the EU, as constituted, will …
Jan 29
Wolf explains UK productivity gap
The great financial journalist Martin Wolf of the FT recently opined about the current state of UK productivity – disappointingly, his words offered no new insights and were simply a regurgitation of current groupthink. He kicked off with the now well-worn cliche from Paul Krugman about productivity being ‘almost everything’ – and then trotted out a …
MIRACLE solution to productivity puzzle
The US is worried about the puzzle of their flat output/ GDP and productivity growth following the 2008 financial crisis, yet employment has risen Likewise the UK and other G7 nations They had all expected growth to ‘revert to trend’ by now and be at least 2% per annum, not approach zero as seems to …
Why do national productivity gaps persist?
Philip Hammond, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, is forever saying: “It takes a German worker four days to produce what a UK worker makes in five” Others say much the same about French workers But such claims are not new, they’ve been made over the last 30 years at least We already know the ONS …
Broad action needed post Brexit
In the Guardian, Katie Allen recommended ways Prime Minister Theresa May could ‘lift the UK economy’s post-Brexit’ blues – via: Tax cuts – especially VAT More infrastructure spending – traffic jams and delivery delays waste a huge amount of time, adding to unit costs and reducing national productivity Encouraging huge increases in housebuilding across the nation, …