UK’s COVID pandemic recovery uneven as cities outside London

People wearing protective face masks walk on Westminster Bridge in front of Big Ben in London. The research found that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected different parts of the economy in ‘very different’ ways. Photo: Henry Nichols / Reuters

A new research published on Saturday shows that the pandemic and its aftermath have slightly narrowed the employment and house price gap in Britain, but left outer London behind.

The Resolution Foundation’s analysis found that despite bridging those gaps, reform has not reduced the wider economic divide, with ethnically diverse areas of outer London at risk of falling behind.

The report, in collaboration with the London School of Economics (LSE) and funded by the Nuffield Foundation, examines how the pandemic and its aftermath have affected different regions of the UK.

According to the foundation, the pandemic has affected different parts of the economy in “very different” ways.

It found that changes, including the work-from-home “revolution”, have been far less transformative, and have not helped to “level up” disadvantaged parts of the UK.

The Resolution Foundation noted that nationally, unemployment has fallen to a combined 40-year low, yet back to pre-pandemic levels in some parts of the country, particularly the airports and areas near outer London. has not come.

It has been said that nine out of 10 local authorities have experienced the biggest increase in unemployment, the second being in London, the other being Luton.

Read more: Britain on the brink of recession amid warnings of weakest economic growth in the developed world

RF said strong employment growth in traditionally low-employment areas in the country like the Northeast has helped narrow the regional employment gap from 7 to 6.5.

It is the difference between the top and bottom quarter employee jobs rates for local officials.

Despite the “weakest job growth” in ethnically diverse areas around the capital with high levels of deprivation, COVID has not “closed the employment gap between the rich and poor parts of the UK”.

The study claims that one in five employees nationally report that they were working “primarily” from home at the beginning of 2022 (WFH) with London experiencing the biggest drive in work volume. And became the center of the big innings. remote working.

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“The WFH revolution has had a larger impact on individual workers and firms than on local economies, although most of the changes are taking place in the same local areas,” the report said.

Resolve Foundation researcher Lalita Trai said: “As the UK finally emerges from the pandemic, there are early indications that the COVID-19 crisis has failed to worsen Britain’s economic geography, but neither has it removed large spatial inequalities -Pandemic UK.

“It is encouraging that strong job growth has narrowed the regional employment gap. But many disadvantaged parts of outer London are struggling, and the WFH revolution is mainly benefiting already prosperous regions, including the UK. Big economic divisions are stuck as ever.

“It makes the task of ‘flattening’ the country all the more challenging, and puts all the more pressure.”

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The foundation argues that the pandemic’s impact on the housing market may be more permanent than the effect on the labor market amid the space race.

Between February 2020 and February 2022, home prices in villages and small towns have increased twice as fast as they are in major cities by 22% and 12%, respectively.

This has closed the regional home price gap slightly, as lower home prices (at the 25th percentile) saw a 19% increase in home prices, while higher priced areas (at the 90th percentile) saw a 19% increase. A growth of 15% has been experienced. ,

The Resolution Fund has warned that despite this, the increase in average rents for new tenants in London, some “the rebalancing of housing demand that occurred during the pandemic, could still be low in the coming months and years”.

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