Blog: February 2019
As images of unrest in the streets of Paris and other French cities continue to flood in the European media, the data on France contained in our latest global forecast, published last week, painted a subtler but still concerning outlook for the French economy.
Over most of the period since World War II, UK productivity performance has been disappointing. Two episodes stand out, namely, the acute phase of relative economic decline during the 1950s through the 1970s and the ‘productivity puzzle’, that is the flatlining of productivity since the onset of the financial crisis in 2008.
In July 2015 the UK government announced the introduction of a new statutory ‘National Living Wage’ (NLW) that would apply to those aged 25 and over from April 2016. At a rate of £7.20, this represented a significant increase of 7.5% over the existing National Minimum Wage rate (and a 10.8% increase on the rate prevailing a year previously - in April 2015).
