Britain’s productivity crisis risks getting worse because the population is ageing steadily, leaving relatively fewer younger, more dynamic workers who typically innovate more. Unless drastic action is taken to boost skills and creativity, or to increase the number of young workers, then growth will struggle to pick up, according to new economic research published in the journal of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. “The share of young workers impacts the innovation process positively and, as a result, a change in the demographic profile that skews the distribution of the population to the right [older], leads to a decline in innovation activity,” said the paper, written by Yunus Aksoy, Henrique Basso and Ron Smith.
UK productivity risks getting worse because the nation's ageing population means there are fewer younger, more dynamic people in the workforce, who historically innovate more, according to research from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. The report found that by 2030, Britain's workforce will be older than it was at its peak in 2007, with a shrinking proportion of young people. " The share of young workers impacts the innovation process positively and, as a result, a change in the demographic profile that skews the distribution of the population to the right [older], leads to a decline in innovation activity," it warned.