History. No count: in none of the five quick estimates did the ONS change its main way of counting hours. The question comes from the ONS statement of 17 September that the new method starts in the November 2026 release.
Hunch. On 17 September the ONS wrote that its new way of counting hours will be used for the whole economy in the November 2026 productivity release.
The new-method market resolves on the same ONS bulletin and the ONS page on its component approach: YES if the main whole-economy figure for output per hour on 17 November, the one the ONS names first in the Main points, uses the new way of counting hours, and NO if it uses the payroll or survey measure or if the ONS announces a delay before then. It is void if no release appears by 1 December 2026, and BBC News and The Guardian settle it if the ONS pages are 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.