Hunch. ONS figures from 15 October show the economy 1.8% bigger than a year earlier in the three months to August, while fewer people were on payrolls, so hours worked would have to jump to pull output per hour below zero.
The productivity market resolves on the ONS bulletin 'Productivity flash estimate and overview, UK: July to September 2026', due at 9:30am on 17 November 2026: YES if yearly growth in UK output per hour for July to September is printed above 0.0% on the main measure, the one the ONS names first in the Main points as its headline or recommended figure, and NO if it is 0.0% or lower. Later revisions do not count, a release moved to no later than 1 December resolves on the new date and is otherwise void, and BBC News and The Guardian settle it if the ONS page is down.
We looked for cases where the ONS published its quick estimate of output per hour after the quarter before had shown a fall over the quarter and slower yearly growth, in the years after the financial crisis and the pandemic. We found five such quick estimates, from 2022 to 2026, out of 42 published for quarters since late 2015. In four of them output per hour was higher than a year earlier, and in August 2022 it was 1.0% lower, because hours worked grew faster than output.