Nevertheless, like other western economies, the Island is in danger of becoming an ‘hour-glass’ – buoyant at both the premium and budget ends of the market but squeezed in the middle. Stephen Boyle, senior economic adviser with the Royal Bank of Scotland Group, suggested that Jersey could become ‘two islands in one’, with financial services and business services off the scale in terms of productivity and high salaries, but other sectors such as tourism and agriculture falling into a high-wage but low-productivity bracket. He said that if those sectors improved their productivity, it could bring in as much as ten per cent more in national income – equivalent to several years of States strategic reserve funding. Mr Boyle said that the so-called hour-glass economy had come about because computers were efficient at carrying out repeatable chunks of work which had historically been done by factory workers. But computers were not good at jobs requiring manual dexterity or human judgment, which was why there had been an increase in higher- and lower-waged jobs in the UK over the past four years. ‘The real prize will be won by boosting productivity in those industries that lie behind,’ he told Jersey Chamber of Commerce members.
