Category Archives: Productivity

The great divide: are office workers more productive than those at home?

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Amazon has told staff they must return five days a week – but experts don’t all agree that flexible working cuts output

Four years ago when the world of work was upended by the Covid pandemic, confident predictions were made that a permanent shift in remote working would follow the removal of lockdown restrictions.

Much has clearly changed since. Some of the earliest preachers of the brave new teleworking world – including the US tech companies Google and Microsoft – are among the most vocal to repent.

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Australia’s productivity riddle – and what it might mean for interest rates

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Michele Bullock keeps telling us productivity is flatlining. How it changes may well determine if the Reserve Bank will tolerate wage rises beyond 3%

If the Reserve Bank’s GDP forecasts about the Australian economy are right, we should be close to a nadir with a sustainable upswing on the way – provided we can get more efficient at what we do.

Productivity growth – a concept that quickens the pulse of economists and almost nobody else – has slowed in Australia and most other developed nations for years.

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Productivity soars in sectors of global economy most exposed to AI, says report

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Employers in UK, one of 15 countries studied, willing to pay 14% wage premium for jobs requiring AI skills

The sectors of the global economy most heavily exposed to artificial intelligence (AI) are witnessing a marked productivity increase and command a significant wage premium, according to a report.

Boosting hopes that AI might help lift the global economy out of a 15-year, low-growth trough, a PwC study found productivity growth was almost five times as rapid in parts of the economy where AI penetration was highest than in less exposed sectors.

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Let boardrooms look beyond shareholder returns to drive productivity, report urges

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Adapting business laws to include benefits other than profit in decision-making could add £149bn to UK economy, says Demos thinktank

Britain’s economy could receive a £149bn boost from a change to UK business laws that would ensure companies put social, economic and environmental benefits at the heart of their decision-making, according to a report.

With the UK on course for the second lowest growth rate in the G7 group of leading economies in 2023, the study by the thinktank Demos said it was clear that cutting taxes or raising public spending had not been effective at driving economic growth.

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Hunt urged to invest £30bn a year in infrastructure or risk ‘decade in doldrums’

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Thinktank says stronger than expected tax revenues have given chancellor scope for bold package in autumn statement

Jeremy Hunt risks condemning Britain to a decade in the doldrums unless he uses this month’s autumn statement to announce a £30bn-a-year investment plan to upgrade public infrastructure, a leading thinktank has warned.

The National Institute for Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the chancellor should ignore calls by Tory MPs for pre-election tax cuts and instead focus on measures to boost growth through improvements to transport, digital networks, skills and housing.

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Great British slowdown has hamstrung our economy – thinktank

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Country needs successful firms to grow and struggling ones to shrink, says Resolution Foundation

The UK needs more businesses to fail, or at least shrink, to solve the economy’s long-running productivity crisis, a study has argued.

The country’s lack of “economic dynamism”, whereby weaker firms or lower productivity sectors shrink, and more productive ones grow, has caused GDP to be 4% lower between 2008 and 2019 than it would otherwise have been, according to a paper published on Monday by the Resolution Foundation.

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Number of Britons facing significant internet outages doubles in a year

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Two-fifths of UK adults disconnected for three hours or more with one in four left without service for nearly a week

The number of Britons who have experienced their internet connection failing for at least three hours has almost doubled in the last year, with irate consumers now ranking broadband outages as a bigger frustration than roadworks or public transport delays.

In the past year, two-fifths (41%) of all UK adults – 22 million consumers – have had their internet disconnected for three or more hours, a significant increase on the 12 million who reported disruption the previous year, according to a report by the price comparison website Uswitch.

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Britain has felt the shift to home working more than most countries

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For many reasons it is no surprise that the office exodus is so pronounced in the historical centre of Anglo-Saxon capitalism

Working from home is a seismic shift in employment patterns that has rocked businesses, charities and public sector organisations across the world.

From Hong Kong and Singapore to London, New York and Toronto, white collar workers have changed the way they work, shop and pursue leisure, culture and recreation, shifting many local economies on their axis. For many towns and cities it’s as if the sun shines at a different point in the day, such is the transformation in how about 60% of people conduct their lives.

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Staff work in central London offices for 2.3 days a week, study finds

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Thinktank warns against wholesale switch to working from home and raises fears over lost productivity in capital

Office workers in central London are spending on average 2.3 days a week in the workplace, according to a report that warns against a wholesale switch to working from home.

The thinktank Centre for Cities carried out polling of office workers in the capital and found they were spending 59% of the time in their workplace compared with pre-Covid levels.

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State treasurers propose targeting men to work in care sector to boost productivity

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Board of treasurers’ submission to employment white paper taskforce suggests making training flexible and promoting regional jobs

Targeting men to work in the child, aged and disability care sectors is one idea proposed by the state treasurers to boost productivity, challenge gender stereotypes and address workforce shortages.

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, will release more than 400 submissions made to the employment white paper taskforce on Saturday.

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Addressing gender stereotypes, workforce shortages and productivity in the care sector by targeting mid-career men for retraining and upskilling.

Making training for the job you want (as opposed to the job you have) tax deductible.

Providing incentives for employers to hire employees from underrepresented cohorts.

Creating pathways for First Nations people to work on major regional projects.

Exploring incentives for university graduates and highly skilled migrants to work in regional areas.

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Jeremy Hunt aims to spur business investment with ‘full expensing’ tax break

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Measure over next three years will allow firms to write off costs of IT equipment and machinery against tax on profits

Jeremy Hunt has launched a flurry of tax breaks to encourage investment by businesses after the double blow of microchip designer Arm opting for a New York stock market listing and AstraZeneca deciding to build a new factory in Dublin.

Businesses that invest in IT equipment and machinery will be able to claim back the cost by writing it off against tax on their profits, the chancellor announced in his budget on Wednesday.

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Long-term sickness leaving 1.6m UK adults over 50 unable to work

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Campaign charity Rest Less says figures illustrate not only a national health issue but an economic one

More than 1.6 million adults aged 50 and over are unable to work because of long-term sickness amid ballooning NHS waiting lists and an exodus from the British workforce since the pandemic, according to the most detailed analysis yet of official data for this age group.

The number has increased 20%, or 270,000 in three years, according to an analysis of Office for National Statistics figures by Rest Less, a digital community and advocate for over fifties.

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How the autumn statement brought back the ‘squeezed middle’

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IFS and Resolution Foundation say Jeremy Hunt’s policies will shock middle England, with higher taxes here to stay


Traditionally elections in Britain are decided by swing voters in a relatively small number of seats. Parties go to considerable lengths to tailor their policies to the perceived demands of those getting by on average incomes. Pollsters have even coined names for the archetypal electors that need to be wooed: Basildon man and Worcester woman.

So it will be of some concern to government strategists that the post-autumn statement analysis by thinktanks focused heavily on how the measures announced by Jeremy Hunt had an effect on those not particularly poor but not especially rich either. Both the Resolution Foundation and the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlighted the return of the “squeezed middle”.

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CBI urges Jeremy Hunt to relax immigration rules to ease UK staff shortages

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Lobby group says failure to tackle workforce shortages would be highly damaging for the economy

Britain’s foremost business lobby group has urged Jeremy Hunt to use this week’s autumn statement to shake up immigration rules to support companies struggling with chronic staff shortages and a looming recession.

The head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) said urgent action was required from the chancellor on Thursday to bolster the economy, including “tough political choices” to allow more overseas workers in Britain as employers struggle with a desperate lack of staff.

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Boris Johnson has left the UK economy in a parlous state

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Analysis: If Johnsonomics stands for anything, it is a lack of plan or vision to address Britain’s economic woes

Boris Johnson entered Downing Street in July 2019 with a promise. The doubters, doomsters and gloomsters were going to get it wrong again: his leadership would make Brexit a success, re-igniting an economy stalled by the divisions over Europe.

Three years later, almost to the day, he prepares to leave with the country reeling from a political implosion of his own making, and an economy teetering on the brink of recession.

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Brexit is making cost of living crisis worse, new study claims

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EU withdrawal fuelling higher import costs and costing British workers nearly £500 a year, says Resolution Foundation

Britain’s cost of living crisis is being made worse by Brexit dragging down the country’s growth potential and costing workers hundreds of pounds a year in lost pay, new research claims.

The Resolution Foundation thinktank and academics from the London School of Economics said the average worker in Britain was now on course to suffer more than £470 in lost pay each year by 2030 after rising living costs are taken into account, compared with a remain vote in 2016.

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Thousands of UK workers begin world’s biggest trial of four-day week

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With work changed for ever by the pandemic, businesses are testing whether pilot represents a recognition that ‘the new frontier for competition is quality of life’

More than 3,300 workers at 70 UK companies, ranging from a local chippy to large financial firms, start working a four-day week from Monday with no loss of pay in the world’s biggest trial of the new working pattern.

The pilot is running for six months and is being organised by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the thinktank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week Campaign, and researchers at Cambridge University, Oxford University and Boston College.

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Thousands of UK workers to take part in four-day week trial

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With work changed forever by the pandemic, firms say shorter week could help attract and retain staff

More than 3,000 workers at 60 companies across Britain will trial a four-day working week, in what is thought to be the biggest pilot scheme to take place anywhere in the world.

Employees from a wide range of businesses and charities are expected to take part in the scheme, which will run initially from June to December, including the Royal Society of Biology, the London-based brewing company Pressure Drop, a Manchester-based medical devices firm, and a fish and chip shop in Norfolk.

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How the pandemic transformed the world of work in 2021

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There were winners and losers as work patterns continued changing, with repercussions for city centres and society as a whole

Of all the predictions on your 2021 bingo card, who had employees being fined for going into the office? Workers in Wales now face that threat since the tightening of Covid regulations amid the spread of the Omicron variant, with a possible £60 penalty for failing to work from home.

That is just one of many examples of how the pandemic has transformed the world of work this year – and perhaps for ever – for city centre employers, their staff and the service industry that depends on them for trade.

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Britain might look to Germany to heal the north-south divide | Torsten Bell

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What happened after the fall of the Berlin Wall involved money, and lots of it

Before the government was forced into locking down British regions, it wanted to level them up, closing productivity gaps between north and south. That’s a valuable objective, reinforced by new research on UK regional inequality from academics appropriately spread across Sheffield, Birmingham and London. The paper reminds us that the UK has some of the biggest productivity gaps between regions in the developed world, with global leaders in parts of London and the south-east very different to some cities in the north and Midlands.

There’s nothing new in politicians or academics pointing to the north-south divide, but more interestingly the work notes that the UK has not always led the way in this inequality between places. Most countries had higher regional gaps than the UK for most of the 20th century. Indeed, the UK’s productivity gaps fell postwar and their surge is only a post-90s phenomenon.

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