Labour Productivity Statistics, 2017 Quarter 1

The release of Labour Productivity Statistics for the period up to 2017 Quarter 1 (January-March) was announced today by Scotland’s Chief Statistician. Key figures in the latest release are:

• On a rolling annual basis to 2017 Quarter 1, comparing the most recent four quarters to the previous four quarters, labour productivity in Scotland, as measured by output per hour worked, decreased by 1.5% in real terms (inflation adjusted).
• Quarterly movements in labour productivity can be volatile, making short term trends difficult to discern. To aid interpretation, this release also contains a trend-based estimate of productivity growth. This indicates the underlying rate of change during the latest quarter by removing both seasonal and irregular (volatile) movements from the data. It is estimated that the trend in real output per hour worked was flat (0.0%) between the fourth quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017.
• This publication also includes estimates of output per job and current price productivity measures (not adjusted for inflation). Experimental estimates of labour productivity for broad industry groups are also available online.

Background

The Labour Productivity statistics are available at: http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy/PROD17Q1

Labour productivity measures the average amount of economic output that is produced by a unit of labour input (measured in this release in terms of jobs and hours worked).

Labour productivity is a derived statistic. This means that it is not directly estimated, but is based on separate estimates for economic output and labour input. Labour input measures in this release are consistent with NUTS1 results for countries and regions published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Output (GVA) statistics are consistent with Scottish Government GDP and Quarterly National Accounts statistics.

Further information on Scottish economic statistics is available at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/Economy

The figures released today were produced in accordance with professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. More information on the standards of official statistics in Scotland can be accessed at: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/About