UK Productivity: October to December 2018
Labour productivity for Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018, as measured by output per hour, decreased by 0.1% compared with the same quarter a year ago; this is the second successive quarterly fall following the decrease of 0.2% seen for the previous quarter (Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 2018).
Whilst services experienced labour productivity growth of 0.4%, manufacturing decreased by 1.1%.
Compared with the previous quarter, UK labour productivity is estimated to have grown by 0.3% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018; the increase in productivity reflected a slight decrease in the number of actual hours worked, whilst there was a larger increase in output growth for the quarter.
Productivity hours worked increased by 1.5% in Quarter 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018 compared with the same quarter a year ago, while the number of jobs increased by 1.3% over the same period.
In 2018, labour productivity measured as output per hour grew by 0.5% compared with the previous year, with increases in both services and manufacturing of 0.8% and 0.3% respectively.
Output per job increased by 0.3% in 2018 compared with the previous year. Services grew by 0.6% over the year whilst, in contrast, manufacturing fell by 0.7%.
Earnings and other labour costs outpaced productivity growth, resulting in unit labour cost growth of 3.1% in the year to 4 (Oct to Dec) 2018, compared with growth of 2.9% in the previous quarter.
