The British economy is wrapped in bandages – we won’t know whether the wound has scabbed or turned septic until they are ripped away.
By the time the furlough scheme ends in April, whole sectors of the economy will have been out of action or severely incapacitated for over a year. Cash grants and the job retention scheme, both riddled with fraud, have propped up zombie businesses, some of which would have gone bust in the last year even without a pandemic. Of the businesses frozen in March 2020, how many will come out of hibernation in April 2021? How many people on furlough will discover that they have, in effect, been on gold-plated unemployment benefit for a year?
No one knows, but the signs are not good. In the third quarter of 2020, Gross Domestic Product – adjusted for inflation and population – was lower than it was at the end of 2004.
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