Labour Productivity QoQ

Labour Productivity QoQ is a derived quarterly statistic in the United Kingdom productivity framework. The Office for National Statistics (ONS), the national statistical institute, has published it since 1998, with series from Quarter 1 1997. It measures output volume per labour input, with output per hour the headline measure for different work patterns.

Output per worker divides gross value added (GVA) by the number of workers, while output per job divides by the number of jobs. It does not measure multi-factor productivity, total output, employment, pay or living standards directly.

Flash whole-economy estimates appear about 6 weeks after quarter-end, with industry detail about 18 weeks after, jointly each quarter. It is derived with no field collection, using Quarterly National Accounts output with same-quarter labour inputs. The flash uses early GVA from the GDP first quarterly estimate on incomplete data, while the overview uses later accounts. Releases include 6 datasets for hour, worker, job, labour costs and industry detail, with output and labour market links.

Revisions follow output and labour inputs, with population reweighting, annual benchmarking and seasonal adjustment back-series reviews.

Headline output per hour moves when output and hours grow at different rates.

• Gross value added in chain volume measure (CVM, inflation-adjusted volume): output numerator for whole economy and industries.
• Productivity hours: total actual hours in the quarter, the preferred input for output per hour.
• Productivity workers: headcount of employed people, full time or part time, however many jobs they hold.
• Productivity jobs: number of positions, each job of a multiple job holder counted separately.
• Industry breakdown (Standard Industrial Classification 2007, SIC2007) and market sector cut: output and hours by industry, separating market from whole economy.
• Real Time Information (RTI, payrolled employee comparator): tax-recorded employees with average hours for cautious comparison only.

In Quarter 2 2020 in the United Kingdom, output per hour fell 1.8% from a year earlier, the largest fall since Quarter 2 2009. GVA fell 21.5% while hours fell 20%, as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme kept worker status despite zero hours. Output per worker fell 21.1%, the steepest fall on record, as workers fell only 0.4%. Quarter on quarter, output per hour fell 2% and output per worker 19%, showing why per-hour is headline for seasonally adjusted data.

1. Output: Take seasonally adjusted GVA in chain volume measure (CVM) as an index with Quarter 1 1997 = 100. Current-price levels are published in cash terms but are not used for growth analysis.
2. Jobs: Build productivity jobs from employee, self-employed, forces and trainee jobs, scaled nationally. Employee jobs use the Short-term Employment Survey (STES); other jobs use the LFS. LFS jobs fill STES gaps for agriculture and households.
3. Hours: Build productivity hours from jobs times Labour Force Survey (LFS) average actual hours, scaled to national hours. Forces use Ministry of Defence hours, with Reporting Unit (RU) basis unlike Workforce Jobs on Local Unit (LU) basis.
4. Divide: GVA divided by hours gives output per hour, by jobs gives output per job and by workers gives output per worker. Market workers equal Labour Force Survey workers minus public plus public corporations.
5. Growth: Compare series with the same quarter a year earlier, the prior quarter or the 2019 average. Hours carry a reversed sign, with splits into within-industry and between-industry effects via Generalised Exactly Additive Decomposition (GEAD).
6. Example and comparator: Illustrative numbers only: GVA index 110.0 divided by hours index 107.8 gives output per hour 102.04. GVA up 0.50% with hours up 0.30% leaves about 0.20% growth. The Real Time Information comparator subtracts about 10% working proprietors, starting only in Quarter 3 2014. Its hours equal workers times LFS average hours, as tax records collect no hours.