Although the importance of the steel industry to the UK economy has declined, it possesses attributes that are critical to the economy’s success. The industry produces a trade surplus, its productivity, investment in R&D and training per employees are higher than the general UK economy.
As far as I can tell the steel industry is currently making a loss. Productivity is therefore negative. Productivity being the value of output created over the value of inputs.
It’s entirely true that labour productivity could be quite high: value produced per hour of labour input. but that’s not quite the same thing, is it?