As LEDs are fitted to sign trays, printed graphics churn out of your wide-format printers, vinyl is stretched over van sides, and the chaff flies from your CNC routers, you are involved in what the Government terms ‘productivity output’. The good news is that, as a nation, we are turning ourselves around. Indeed, in the last half of 2017 productivity in the UK sky rocketed from 0.2 percent growth to 3.4 percent.
In addition, capital spending is up, total investments are up a percentage point since the crash. In addition, wage growth is picking up in real terms as inflation begins to fall.
Why? Well, the global economy is rising on a thermal. The crash caused huge stress on countries around the world and exposed all the tears in the economic web that keeps us connected. Since then regulators have been working hard to create mechanisms that prevent risky investment gambling from taking out mainstream economic progress and implementing stimulus packages. Brexit has also had the unexpected effect of stimulating productivity, as businesses across the spectrum push harder than ever to create war chests prior to March 29th, 2019.
In addition, our labour market in this country is doing well for itself. Employment between 25 and 54-year-olds sits at 84 percent. This rosy picture does however have some thorns hiding between the petals.
They may be proved wrong, but the consensus says that when we leave the EU under the terms being nailed down, we will over time gradually be cut out of the supply to chain to Europe. This is pretty obvious. But the upside is that UK-based workers will naturally be focussed on producing goods ‘in-house’ as it were, instead of importing them cheaply. The UK’s exports to Europe will cost more though. And with free movement of people curtailed, the economy will be less efficient and suffer in GDP growth until a long-term re-adjustment can take place.
So, the message is we all just need to keep our nose to the grindstone and keep making as much hay as possible while the sun shines bright for the next eleven months.