UK | Why the pandemic scars won’t run so deep
We now expect the scarring effect from the pandemic on the supply-side of the UK’s economy to be much more limited – a 1% permanent cut to GDP compared to our original estimate of 2.6%. But we still forecast UK GDP growth will average a relatively modest 1.4% a year through the 2020s.
What you will learn:
- The resilience of the labour market is key to our estimate of more limited scarring.
- We think unemployment may have peaked already at a little more than 1ppt above its pre-pandemic level, limiting hysteresis effects, while recent ONS data suggests there has not been a mass exodus of foreign-born workers.
- We think the UK’s large negative output gap will persist for some time, so the risk of a rapid recovery triggering a sustained rise in inflation is low. We also think the repair job for the public finances is smaller than the OBR estimates.
Tags:
Related Services

Post
Firms must brace for higher ‘new normal’ construction material prices
New research by Oxford Economics suggests that construction materials prices have shifted permanently higher due to the shocks of the past couple of years. Project managers and investors should anticipate costs being at least 15-20% higher in 2024 and onwards than in 2021.
Find Out More
Post
New Activity Trackers suggest momentum is waning
After a choppy first quarter of GDP data, our novel Activity Trackers (which incorporate proprietary daily sentiment data from Penta) suggest that economic momentum in EM Asia is on a softer trend in Q2 (at least outside of China) supporting our view of easing underlying inflationary pressures and diminishing appetite for further rate hikes.
Find Out More