The British economy grew by 1.8% in May, far less than the predicted 5% growth rate. It further decreases the hopes of the UK to recover from the current recession country is facing due to corona-virus.
Office for National Statistics reported that the growth followed by ease of lock-down, particularly in construction and manufacturing sectors. The online record sales in the retail industry also helped.
However, with lock-down restrictions in many places, some services still seem gloomy.
In April, the economy contracted 20.3%, which leaves the economy 24.5% smaller than February.
Many economists argue that the market would bounce back amid the eases in lock-down. In June, non-essential items like book shops were also allowed to reopen. Hospitality sectors such as pubs & restaurants also started opening in early July.
Also, there are arguments that the social distancing remaining in place and many people losing their jobs, the economy would continue to struggle.
According to Office for Budget Responsibility, the nation’s economy will contract by 14.3%, approximately, in the current year and would not be able to recover fully until 2024.
As per some reports, Britain is witnessing the largest fall in the GDP over the past 300 years. , and the output is set to sink by 10.3, in the best possible scenario.
Unemployment in the UK is also worst affected by the pandemic. The government also backed out from some of the emergency support programmes. Companies, including giants like Rolls Royce and Airbus, are continuously announcing significant job cuts, taking the jobless people to count to around 3 Million, last seen before the 1980s.
Britain has also lost around 28.7 Billion pounds in the spam created by the 1.2 million employers. Due to the Job Retention Program, the government has been paying for the employees who were not fired.