The United Kingdom’s rebounded more slowly than expected in the month of May. The figures show a 1.8% growth from April, showing a relatively modest impact of the gradual easing of lockdown. Sectors that have showed signs of recovery in May are manufacturing and house building, with some staff returning to work. However, the Office for National Statistics has come out to state that the economy was “in the doldrums”.
Experts have described the economic growth in May as “disappointing,” considering their expectation of an expansion of at least 5%. The growth is coming after a decline of 6.9% in March and a record 20.4% fall in April. The economy shrank by 19.1% in the three months to May, compared with the previous three-month period, the ONS said.
“The economy was still a quarter smaller in May than in February, before the full effects of the pandemic struck,” said Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS.
“In the important services sector, we saw some pick-up in retail, which saw record online sales. However, with lockdown restrictions remaining in place, many other services remained in the doldrums, with a number of areas seeing further declines.”
Mr Athow recently revealed that there could be signs of improvement in June’s figures.”Some of the survey data we’re seeing suggests that as more of the economy reopened and as some of the restrictions were eased, we did see stronger performance in June, but it’s really early,” he said.
“You’ve got one month of firm data and some indicators suggesting June might be stronger, but there’s a long road to go here and we’re still trying to figure out what the best data is to understand the overall picture.”
The manufacturing and construction sectors grew by over 8% during the month and according to the British Chambers of Commerce, the May’s “modest rally” did little to change “the UK’s historically downbeat growth trajectory”.
“The pick-up in output in May is more likely to reflect the partial release of pent-up demand as restrictions began to loosen rather than evidence of a genuine recovery,” said the BCC’s head of economics, Suren Thiru.
“While UK economic output may grow further in the short term as restrictions ease, this may dissipate as the economic scarring caused by the pandemic starts to bite, particularly as government support winds down.”
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