After faltering for several years, the UK economy shows signs of real recovery, with rising spending, investment, exports and even manufacturing growth. At the start of 2014, there seems to be a virtuous circle of falling unemployment, falling inflation, and rising GDP.
After one of the longest and deepest recessions on record, these signs of economic growth are definitely welcome, yet it is far from a return to normality. Real GDP is still 2% below its 2008 peak, and the economy is being propped up by zero interest rates, quantitative easing and a strong housing market. Stagnant wages and poor productivity growth have led to one of the most prolonged periods of declining living standards in memory. Although there is economic recovery, there is still a fear that the recovery is unbalanced, and that the UK economy could be derailed by problems in the Eurozone and future government austerity measures.
Economic growth
The ONS have recently revised annualised economic growth to indicate an annual growth rate of 1.9%. Still below trend rate, but welcome after the several years of falling GDP. For 2014, the OBR forecasts economic growth of 2.4% (BBC link)
A difficult question is how much of an output gap the UK has. Since 2008, GDP has fallen away from the trend rate of growth. In theory, with output much lower than potential GDP, we would expect a rapid recovery to ‘catch up’ the lost GDP. However, we are unlikely to see this. The great recession has unfortunately led to a permanent loss in real GDP. Economists debate how much spare capacity the UK has. But, for the moment growth rates of 2.5% are unlikely to cause any significant inflationary pressure.
Inflation
more on inflation
It is ironic that now we are experiencing economic recovery, headline inflation is finally falling closer to the government’s inflation target. of 2%. During the great recession, inflation was often above target due to cost push factors, such as depreciation, rising oil prices and higher taxes. But, now these cost push factors have evaporated, inflation has fallen to 2.1%. Given the nature of the economic recovery, inflation is likely to stay low in 2014, helped by low inflation expectations.
UK Unemployment
Compared with the rest of the Eurozone, UK unemployment could almost be considered a success story. Unemployment has fallen to 7.4% (2.39 million). There is a record number of people in employment (over 30 million for the first time)
However, whilst this unemployment rate is relatively low compared to Europe and also compared to previous recessions, there are other aspects which make less positive reading. Low unemployment has been helped by a rise in part-time employment, temporary contracts, greater job insecurity and falling productivity. (see UK Unemployment mystery) Also, there are pockets of high unemployment, especially in the north, inner cities and amongst the young. Unemployment of 2.39 million is still a serious social problem, and it will need a considerable period of economic expansion to help reduce to more manageable levels.
Nevertheless, temporary work is still better than no work. Flexible labour markets have many drawbacks, but it is quite interesting that during the shallower recessions of the 1980s and 90s, unemployment rose to a much higher level. There are also promising signs of firms hiring more workers in areas such as, marketing, sales and business development (FT link) which indicate sign of optimism.