Productivity in the UK’s low-wage industries

Concern about the UK’s productivity problem has become widespread. Fixing the UK’s productivity problem requires action for the lagging parts of the economy – low pay sectors such as retail and hospitality, the long tail of low-productivity firms, and the five million individuals in the UK lacking basic functional literacy or numeracy.

This briefing examines the productivity gap between Britain and its competitors. It is published alongside two other pieces of research commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation:

• Green et al., ‘Raising productivity in low wage sectors and reducing poverty’
• Savona et al., ‘The heterogeneous wage distribution of labour productivity changes’.