British economy slumped by more than 20 percent

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Passer-by with cell phone and face mask in front of a closed shop in London

Alastair Grant / AP

In the UK, the economy crashed in the spring because of the corona pandemic. The gross domestic product (GDP) collapsed from April to June by 20.4 percent compared to the previous quarter, as the statistics office in London announced. No other large industrialized country has reported such a large minus.

For comparison: the German economy contracted in the second quarter by 10.1 percent only about half as much. In France (minus 13.8 percent), Spain (minus 18.5 percent) and Italy (minus 12.4 percent), economic output also fell sharply during this period, but did not reach the UK level.

Since the British economy had already shrunk from January to March - then by 2.2 percent - the country is now officially in recession. This is technically defined by economists as the decline in economic output for two quarters in a row. In Great Britain, the development has already cost numerous jobs - officially the number of unemployed rose by 220,000 from April to June - more than since the 2009 financial crisis.

Calculated over the year: decline of 9.5 percent expected

The pandemic had hit Great Britain particularly hard: According to Johns Hopkins University, 313,394 infections have been found to date, 46,611 have died from Covid-19. After initial hesitation, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government had implemented a tough lockdown that brought large parts of the economy to a standstill. During the main holiday season, there are now new quarantine rules to prevent a second wave.

Despite the lockdown, there are now also signals that the sixth largest economy in the world is growing again with the lifting of many restrictions. In June alone it increased by 8.7 percent compared to May, as the statistics office announced. "The economy began to recover in June," said Jonathan Athow of the Office for National Statistics. "Even so, GDP is still a sixth lower than in February before the virus struck."

According to a forecast by the British central bank, gross domestic product will fall by a total of 9.5 percent this year - an economic downturn the likes of which Great Britain has not experienced in around a hundred years. Next year, growth of nine percent should follow.

apr / Reuters