2. Things you need to know about this release

This bulletin contains annual estimates of labour productivity for the G7 developed countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and US) up to 2016. Labour productivity measures the amount of economic output that is produced by a unit of labour input and is an important measure of economic performance.

Output is measured by gross domestic product (GDP). Labour input is measured in two ways – by total hours worked and by the number of workers in employment. These two measures of labour input can yield different results, reflecting differences in working patterns across countries and compositional movements over time, such as changes in the part-time share of employment.

Comparability across countries is achieved by using estimates of GDP and labour inputs from a common source (the Statistics Directorate of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)) as far as possible. These are the best data available for international comparisons at the time of publication, although they may differ from the Office for National Statistics’ (ONS’) headline measures.The headline labour measures which OECD publish will differ slightly in their seasonal profile. We convert local currency-based measures of GDP using purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates, which attempt to equalise the cost of a representative basket of goods and services in countries with different national currencies. An article by ONS explaining the uses and limitations of PPPs is available.

OECD has recently discontinued the publication of their Annual Labour Force Statistics (ALFS) database total employment measure, which has historically been used as the employment measure for this release. For the missing recent years in the total employment series, Eurostat (for European countries) and an alternative OECD employment series (for non-European countries) are used to project the data. This method is being used on an interim basis pending a more detailed review of the international comparisons of productivity (ICP) labour inputs and further engagement with OECD. We will report on progress with this work in our January 2018 Productivity Bulletin with the aim of delivering an improved source in our April 2018 International Comparisons of Productivity release.

The labour productivity measures in this bulletin are presented in terms of current prices, suitable for cross-country comparison of levels of productivity for a single year and constant prices, suitable for analysis of productivity performance over a number of years.

The estimates in this release update those published on 5 April 2017. This release cycle reflects the publication and revision cycles of the component data series.

Alongside this release, estimates by industry are also published in a short note. However, it is important to note that these are experimental estimates and not National Statistics.

More information on methodology and interpretation is available in the Quality and methodology section of this bulletin.