LONDON — The U.K. economy recorded its biggest contraction in more than three centuries in 2020, according to official estimates, highlighting the Covid-19 pandemic’s economic toll on a country that has also suffered one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks.
Though the country is grappling with a new, highly contagious variant of the coronavirus, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is hopeful that a rapid vaccination drive will permit a gradual reopening of the economy in the coming months, paving the way for a rapid rebound later in the year.
Gross domestic product shrank 9.9% over the year as a whole, the Office for National Statistics said Friday, the largest decline among the Group of Seven advanced economies. France’s economy shrank 8.3% and Italy’s contracted 8.8%, according to provisional estimates. German GDP declined 5%.
Britain’s economy was hit especially hard in the second quarter of the year as a nationwide lockdown took effect. Social distancing and the closure of restaurants, bars, hotels and theaters was painful for the British economy, where a higher share of national income is spent on recreation and similar services that require face-to-face contact than in other comparable economies.
The U.K. also kept restrictions on daily life and the economy in place for longer than some of its peers as it struggled to bring down Covid-19 case loads. The U.K. has suffered one of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks, with more than 120,000 deaths linked to the virus and at least four million people infected.
A resurgent epidemic in the fall, which scientists later discovered was fueled by a highly contagious variant of the virus that has since spread around the world, also hurt growth.
Friday’s data showed the economy nevertheless performed better than expected in the final quarter of the year, aided by government spending and business investment. The economy grew 1% in the final quarter of the year compared with the previous quarter, equivalent to an annualized growth rate of 4%, the ONS said.
The U.K. in January returned to lockdown in an effort to contain the spread of the new variant, which is expected to cause another contraction in the first three months of the year.
The vaccination drive has so far inoculated more than 13.5 million people, around a fifth of the population, with at least one dose. Mr. Johnson is due to set out plans for a phased reopening of the economy later this month.
The decline in U.K. GDP in 2020 was the largest in more than 300 years, according to Bank of England data, though the preliminary estimate is likely to be revised. BOE data shows the economy last recorded a comparable drop in 1921, when it shrank 9.7% during the depression that followed World War One. The economy recorded a bigger contraction, of 13%, in 1709, during an unusually cold winter known as the Great Frost.
Write to Jason Douglas at [email protected]
