There are many possible factors that explain the UK's productivity gap. But ultimately, productivity is mainly an inverse function of labour cost. In economies

There are many possible factors that explain the UK's productivity gap. But ultimately, productivity is mainly an inverse function of labour cost. In economies with a high supply of labour and thus (relatively) low wages, there is less incentive for businesses to invest in labour-saving plant and technology. Why make the risky investment in automation when you can just hire more workers cheaply? The car wash business illustrates this: where there is a good supply of cheap labour, you'll find "hand" car washes with multiple attendants ready to wash your car by hand at any time. But when labour is more scarce and expensive, washing cars by hand isn't really viable. Businesses will instead invest in automatic car wash equipment - and productivity per unit of labour is therefore higher! In (higher productivity) France, automatic car washes are everywhere. In the (lower productivity) UK, there are an awful lot of hand car washes.