23 January 2023
We have identified and corrected a manual error in relation to output per hour worked growth rates in this publication. The error was because the estimates of output per hour worked of the countries, in constant prices, had been generated using input from two different years, instead of the same year. The error does not affect any other data reported as part of this publication. The error has been corrected and the corresponding dataset has been updated. We are adopting additional quality assurance checks to ensure that this does not happen in the future. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.
The corrections change some of the previous main conclusions:
the previous version suggested that the UK’s average output per hour worked growth rate was 5.0% during the coronavirus (COVID-19) period of 2020 and 2021. The corrected version shows that the UK’s average output per hour growth rate was -0.3% over this period. Canada’s average output per hour growth rate has now changed from 6.1% to 0.8% and Italy from 5.9% to 0.9%. The UK also grew more slowly than Germany and the US, which were up by 0.9% and 2.3%, respectively.
the previous version suggested that the UK output per hour worked in 2021 (excluding Japan) had the fastest growth of the G7 countries. This has now been corrected to the second slowest. The previous version also suggested that in 2020 the UK had a fall of 12%, which is now corrected to a 1.2% increase.
The other main points of the bulletin are unchanged.
