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The University of Essex Estimates that the UK Lockdown May Take Over 6.5 Million Jobs Out of the Economy
The Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER) at the University of Essex has produced estimates suggesting that lockdown measures may see the loss of over 6.5 million jobs in the United Kingdom – which is around a quarter of the total.
The study, led by Professor Matteo Richiardi with ISER researcher Diego Collado, uses ONS (Office for National Statistics) data to create a prediction of job losses by sector.
Their findings suggest that the most affected sector in terms of effects which the lockdown will have on employment will be ‘Accommodation & Food Services’ (-75%), followed by ‘Services and Retail’ (which is predicted to be almost halved at 47.6%), and ‘Transport’ (-44%).
The report reads: “Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing loses one job in 10, mainly due to reduced demand by the Accommodation & Food Services sector.”
“Mining, Energy and Water Supply, Real Estate Activities (mostly composed of rents), together with Public Administration and Technical Activities are barely affected, while the Health sector sees a significant increase in overall production and employment (+27%).”
The prediction has been based on the most updated “Input-Output” tables provided by the ONS (2016), the report continues:
“… we have assumed the lockdown implies some reduction in the final demand of goods and services (this includes demand from households and government, as well as investments and exports), plus constraints on the supply side, for instance due to reduced productivity of working from home.”
“We have then worked out how this reduction is passed on to the intermediate demand – the productive engine of the country.”
The report states that the next step will be to evaluate the impact of “macroeconomic consequences of the lockdown on household disposable income, inequality and poverty, and quantify the cost of the rescue package put forward by the Government.”
The University of Essex Estimates UK Lockdown May Take Over 6.5 Million Jobs Out of the Economy
