BRITAIN’S over-reliance on the service sector was exposed yesterday after official figures revealed that productivity experienced its sharpest quarterly slump since the height of the recession in 2008.

Overall productivity was down by 1.2 per cent at the end of last year, with manufacturing productivity virtually flat since the start of the decade.

The picture was worse in the production sector, with output per job down 4.9 per cent since 2010, and output per hour down 5.7 per cent.