The UK labour market and the 2008 - 2009 recession

Paul Gregg and Jonathan Wadsworth

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The recession of 2008-2009 inflicted a larger cumulative loss of UK output than any of the other post-war recessions. Nevertheless, employment rates remained higher than might have been expected given the experience of previous recessions. The main reasons for this appear to be a combination of high firm profitability levels going into the recession, supportive monetary and fiscal policies during the recession, reductions in real producer wages and relatively buoyant real consumer wages. Unemployment had reached its lowest levels for thirty years going in to the latest recession and has also remained relatively subdued through the downturn, certainly compared to previous recessions. A combination of lower inflow rates into unemployment, allied with a relatively higher outflow rate into employment, underlie this. As government support for the economy is scaled back and productivity growth remains low, it may be that it will take a long time for employment to return to levels last seen before the recession.

JEL-codes: J01 J1 R14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The UK Labour Market and the 2008 - 2009 Recession (2010)
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