We can measure it, but does it measure us? Madeleine Pennington writes on productivity for The New European. 13/09/2023

“Britain has a productivity problem. For much of the 20th century, productivity rose markedly across the west as emerging technologies and better education drove more efficient work. As the economist Silvana Tenreyro notes, in the decades before the financial crisis, productivity grew at such a rate that the average worker in 2007 was producing twice as much “value” per hour as their counterpart 30 years previously.

In theory, higher productivity offers liberation for our personal lives, as we work more efficiently but for fewer hours, freeing up the rest of our diaries for leisure, volunteering, relationships, and rest. John Maynard Keynes predicted we would work 15 hours a week by 2030, so high would productivity rise.

Why, then, has productivity growth not brought these things? Material living standards have improved drastically over the last 50 years, but this didn’t create a fairer, happier, or more sustainable society; if anything, it has led to the opposite.”

Read the full article here.

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