Economy in crisis

Professor Frank Peck, Research Director of the Centre for Regional Economic Development (CRED) at the University of Cumbria’s Institute of Business, Industry & Leadership discusses how Cumbria’s economy has been hit by the global pandemic. UK Citizens have grown used to interpreting graphs in recent months through the daily briefings from Government on the coronavirus pandemic. The trends in demographic statistics make sombre reading. More recently, media headlines have been drawn to debates surrounding trends in economic indicators. The impact of the lockdown on the UK economy is now becoming clear. Data released by the Office for National Statistics on July 14, 2020 show that in the three months to the end of May 2020, UK GDP declined by 19.1 per cent. This decline affected all major sectors including manufacturing (-18 per cent), services (-18.9 per cent) and construction (-29.8 per cent). Within the service sector, however, the most severe decline has been in accommodation and food services (-71.7 per cent), a sub-sector that is vital to the Cumbrian economy. These figures are also produced in a monthly series.