Yesterday afternoon (December 6th, 2017), Finance Minister Philip Hammond sparked alarm and condemnation for suggesting that the UK's stubbornly low productivity rate was due to the high employment rate and larger numbers of disabled workers.
His exact quote was:
"It is almost certainly the case that by increasing participation in the workforce, including far higher levels of participation by marginal groups and very high levels of engagement in the workforce, for example of disabled people – something we should be extremely proud of – may have had an impact on overall productivity measurements."
The problem is, there does not appear to be any evidence that this is actually the case, in the UK or elsewhere. Read Evan Odell’s full blog
Evan is employed at DR UK as our DRILL Research Programme Officer.
The DRILL (Disability Research on Independent Living and Learning) is an innovative 5 year UK wide programme, funded by the Big Lottery, which will deliver the world’s first major research programme led by disabled people. Find out more about DRILL