{"id":81365,"date":"2020-07-01T11:02:13","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T03:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=81365"},"modified":"2020-07-01T11:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-07-01T03:03:03","slug":"covid-19-uk-economy-hit-worse-than-first-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=81365","title":{"rendered":"Covid-19: UK economy hit worse than first thought"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"British<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LONDON, July 1 (NN-AGENCIES) — The UK economy shrank more than first thought between January and March, contracting 2.2% in the joint largest fall since 1979, official figures show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revised down its previous estimate of a 2% contraction, with all the main economic sectors dropping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a significant economic impact in March, as the coronavirus pandemic began to have an effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathan Athow, Deputy national statistician at the ONS, said: “Our more detailed picture of the economy in the first quarter showed GDP shrank a little more than first estimated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Information from government showed health activities declined more than we previously showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All main sectors of the economy shrank significantly in March as the effects of the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first-quarter contraction is now the joint biggest drop since the July-to-September period in 1979.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athow said: “The sharp fall in consumer spending at the end of March led to a notable increase in households’ savings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new data showed 6.9% GDP contraction in March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first-quarter figures show that the services sector – which accounts for about three-quarters of UK GDP – shrank by a record 2.3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ONS said production output fell by a revised 1.5% in the three months, driven by declines in manufacturing as factories temporarily shut down, while there was a fall in construction output of 1.7%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When compared with the same three-month period a year ago, the economy shrank by 1.7%, worse than the previous estimate of a 1.6% contraction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as the coronavirus lockdown only came into force on March 23, the second quarter will show the full hit on the economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent ONS monthly figures showed the economy plummeted by 20.4% in April – the largest drop in a single month since records began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That contraction was three times greater than the decline seen during the whole of the 2008 to 2009 economic downturn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, separate ONS data on the nation’s finances showed that Britain’s current account deficit widened by more than expected in the first quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The balance of payments deficit – the difference between the value of the goods and services that a country imports and the goods and services it exports – rose to \u00a321.1bn, or 3.8% of GDP. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson LONDON, July 1 (NN-AGENCIES) — The UK economy shrank more than first thought between January and March, contracting 2.2% in the joint largest fall since 1979, official figures show. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) revised down its previous estimate of a 2% contraction, with all the main economic sectors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":81371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81365"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/81371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}