Productivity and Competitiveness
BIS is working to create the conditions for business success and help the UK respond to the challenge of globalisation. Globalisation and the accompanying intensification of competitive pressures are rapidly changing the context in which UK business operates. Business and Government must respond to globalisation by boosting our competitiveness, and that means raising our productivity.
Higher productivity means higher wages, higher profits and better public services. Improving UK productivity performance will be the main source of future improvements in UK living standards.
The Government has identified five drivers of productivity: investment, innovation, skills, enterprise and competition. A wide-ranging programme of reforms has been initiated to boost productivity through the five drivers, including many which work across the five drivers, exploiting synergies between them.
The Indicators
The UK Productivity and Competitiveness Indicators set out the Government approach to measuring competitiveness. It analyses a broad range of measures across the five fundamental drivers of productivity to arrive at a balanced assessment of how well the UK is performing relative to the competitor economies of the US, France and Germany.
The Indicators were first published in 1999, and annual updates have been published since 2001. The 2008 report refreshed the existing set of indicators to help us better monitor progress on UK productivity performance. The Indicators are an important part of a wider evidence base to understand UK productivity performance and formulate policy. BIS will continue to make this evidence base publicly available through the publication of BIS Economics Papers.
The latest assessment of the Indicators includes an assessment of overall UK productivity performance, and looks at progress on the underlying drivers of productivity. The paper also considers possible short term impacts on productivity growth and the policies the Government is putting in place to address these issue.
Analysis
Further analysis of productivity and competitiveness issues can be found in the Main Economics Paper Series.
External resources
Contact
Keith Brook
Tel: 020 7215 3292
E-mail: keith.brook@bis.gsi.gov.uk
