Better productivity is good and it should be used for good work

Professor Sir Chris Pissarides, Nobel Prize winner in Economics,  has written a blog for the Institute for the Future Work about National Productivity Week.

In Better productivity is good and it should be used for good work – thoughts on the National Productivity Week, he writes:

“As we come to the end of National Productivity Week, it is instructive to look back at what has been said in the many events that took place since Monday, with much of the emphasis on the impact of productivity growth on our incomes. For sure, if we trace wage growth and productivity per person over long periods of time, we see a good correlation between them. Higher productivity brings to the firm more revenue for each worker it employs, and so more to share between workers and capital owners. On average a similar kind of sharing has been taking place over the years, with some short-lived exceptions like the fall in labour’s share during George Osborne’s austerity policies of 2010-2016.”

Sir Chris also discussed “a neglected social objective: good work” in his blog which can be read on the website of the Institute for Future of Work, which he co-founded.  Sir Chris is also a member of the Productivity Commission.