MOSCOW, October 17 (RIA Novosti) - Britain's productivity has registered the widest gap since 1992 compared with the rest of the G7 countries, Britain's Office for National Statistics (ONS) said in a statement Friday.
"Output per hour in the UK was 17 percentage points below the average for the rest of the major G7 industrialised economies in 2013, the widest productivity gap since 1992. On an output per worker basis, UK productivity was 19 percentage points below the average for the rest of the G7 in 2013," the statement published on the ONS' website said.
"UK output per hour fell slightly in 2013 compared with 2012, contrasting with an increase of 1.0% across the rest of the G7. In 2013 UK output per hour was roughly unchanged from its level in the pre-downturn year of 2007, but some 15-16 percentage points below a counterfactual level had the UK's strong productivity growth prior to the downturn continued. The productivity gap on the same basis for the rest of the G7 is around 6 percentage points," the statement continued.
G7, previously G8 or Group of 8, is an international organization created in 1975 to include the world's most industrialized countries. It consists of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. The organization formerly comprised eight states until Russia was voted to leave the group following the start of the crisis in Ukraine.
