Jim Power

You brought my attention this morning to a piece that was in The Economist magazine on Monday about the US productivity miracle.

And OK, the concept of productivity may sound a little bit geeky, but at the end of the day,

you know, it does boil down to the ability to produce more with the same labour, which is the key to prosperity.

And Europe and the United Kingdom have struggled big time with productivity for at least a couple of decades.

But the analysis done on Bureau of Labour is,

by The Economist to show that in the last five years, US productivity has jumped enormously.

It's the fastest pace in two decades for non-farm businesses in total.

Productivity is growing 2% per annum, up from 1% for most of the previous 20 years.

The Federal Reserve has just increased its long-run GDP growth potential for the United States from 1.8% to 2%.

And looking at over the last five years, the sectors that are driving this, it's the information industry, that's software, telecoms, publishing, filmmaking, 6% year on annual growth in productivity over the last five years.

professional services, management services growing strongly, the oil and gas sector growing strongly.

So there's a lot of very, very impressive statistics coming through there.

And the economist commentator who wrote the piece says that the U.S.

is unusually flexible, dynamic and innovative by rich world standards.

So

You know, despite everything we have discussed about Trump and the damage he's doing globally and to the US economy, that underlying productivity performance is pretty impressive.

And one of the factors that's been cited has been really important in all of that is the energy revolution issue.

In the States over recent years, particularly the fracking revolution, the US has become virtually energy independent.

Electricity is about half the price as in Europe and a third of the price or a third lower than in Japan.

So a lot of very positive stuff there.