For a decade and a half, economists and politicians have been debating what came to be known as the productivity puzzle, the persistently weak growth in output per worker or hour that set in after the financial crisis. In the ten years leading up to the end of 2007, productivity measured by output per hour rose by more than 25 per cent; in the 16 years since, it has risen by only 6 per cent.
The rot set in after the shock of the financial crisis, although some think problems were beginning to emerge before then. Now the question is whether another shock, that of the pandemic, has left us with another puzzle, that of permanently higher levels of economic inactivity. These are working-age people
