The CBI on Britain's Job Creation record

This is what the  Managing Director for People and Infrastructure at the Confederation of British Industry had to say about the results of a survey into what their members expect in 2018:


Comments

Anonymous said…
In France 50 people create 100 widgets, in Britain it takes 100 people to create 100 widgets. Britain has a better record on job creation!
Chris Whiteside said…
We do have a productivity problem in Britain which I have written about repeatedly.

Not quite as bad as half the productivity of France - the most recent OFS bulletin on the subject suggested that UK productivity per hour worked was about 15.9% below the average for the G7 in 2015.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/productivitymeasures/bulletins/internationalcomparisonsofproductivityfinalestimates/2015

It would, however, be a gross and misleading oversimplification to infer that job creation is merely the flip side of poor productivity.

Sadly the UK has lagged behind in productivity growth and absolute levels for decades and there are appear to be a range of causes for this
Chris Whiteside said…
However, if we had not had a dramatic increase in employment over the last six years in Britain in both absolute and relative terms there is no evidence whatsoever that we would be producing the same level of output with fewer people - it is more likely that we would be producing less in absolute and relative terms.
Chris Whiteside said…
It is, perhaps, worth adding that Britain is far from being the OECD country with "productivity puzzle" although ours, according to ONS, is the worst.
Chris Whiteside said…
Typo alert for the second comment in this thread - "OFS" should of course have been ONS - Office of National Statistics.

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