UK GDP falls 20% in one month

It really shouldn't come as a surprise that UK real GDP should collapse in this way because the shut-down was a deliberate act to protect public health.

But the scale of the decline in the value of output of goods and services is breath-taking. By the end of April 2020, real GDP was 25% below the level before the coronavirus pandemic took real hold.

More here from the economists at ING

Most sectors have been badly affected but the construction industry experienced a strong decline in output of 40.1% during April 2020. And of course retailers and many thousands of businesses in tourism and hospitality have seen an almost complete shut down. Only pharmaceutical production was up as economics students will readily explain!

We will curate in this blog initial responses to this dramatic macroeconomic news and we encourage you to follow the social media of some of the analysts selected.

We can expect a rebound in economic activity in May as lockdown is gradually relaxed. But how deep will the economic scarring effects be? This will be one of the dominant issues for policy makers to address in the months to come and I would argue that they need to be ambitious and inventive in stimulating a recovery built on jobs, environmental sustainability and driving innovation among smaller businesses.