UK Productivity Growth Keeps Falling

David Cameron has presided over an economy with the weakest productivity record of any government since the second world war, the Office for National Statistics said as it revealed output per worker fell again in the final three months of 2014.

In a separate blow to the government, two-thirds of leading UK economists said they believed George Osborne’s austerity strategy had been bad for the economy.

The ONS said productivity decreased by 0.2% in the third quarter of the financial year, leaving output per hour worked little changed on the previous year and slightly lower than in 2007, before the UK’s longest and deepest modern recession.

“These estimates show that the absence of productivity growth in the seven years since 2007 is unprecedented in the postwar period,” the ONS said.

The economy is dominating the third day of the general election campaign after 100 business leaders wrote to the Telegraph backing the government’s economic policies. George Osborne is due to make a speech this afternoon, while Boris Johnson is launching the Conservatives campaign in London and Samantha Cameron is campaigning at a school.

The ONS figures show that with workers producing less than they did in 2007, Britain’s productivity gap with its major economic rivals, such as the US, Germany and France, has widened.

via The Guardian

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