Economic uncertainty is set to continue well into 2021 despite the roll-out of the Covid vaccination programme, a new report reveals.
The British Retail Consortium’s (BRC) Economic Briefing Report also reports that it could take until 2022 for the economy to return to 2019 levels.
Key findings are as follows:
- UK GDP is estimated to have fallen by 10% over 2020, and projected to increase by 4.5% over 2021. This means that the road to recovery will be a long one, as output will get back to its 2019 level only in 2022.
- In November, output fell by 2.6% month-on-month, following six consecutive months of increases.
- The state of the labour market is worrisome with unemployment reaching 5% and redundancies soaring to 395,000, a more severe outcome than in the 2008 financial crisis. While 3.8 million workers remained furloughed and the furloughing scheme was extended again to the end of April.
- Shop prices were pushed deeper into deflationary territory in January, as Food inflation eased and Non-Food deflation accelerated. Upward pressures on prices are piling up, from new costly border checks, rising global food prices and shipping costs.
Additional Guidance and Resources
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