UK's economy shrinks by 20.4% in 2nd quarter of 2020, FM Sunak says 'Hard times are here'

While the entire world is still grappling with the Coronavirus and its raging issues, the economic output in the United Kingdom has fallen to 20.4 percent in the second quarter of the year 2020. Calling it the worst slump on record, a report by CNN said that it has pushed the country into the deepest recession. 

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"The quarterly slump is the worst one on record and has pushed the country into the deepest recession and has pushed the country deepest of any major world economy," the report by CNN said. 

"The severe GDP crash, that had happened in the months between April and June was the worst since the quarterly records of 1955," added CNN. The economy had reported a contraction of 2.2 percent in the first quarter. 

"The figures of today are an indicator that the tough times are finally here. Hundreds of thousands of people have already lost their jobs, and sadly, many more people would be losing them in the coming months," said Rishi Sunak, the finance minister of the UK. 

"While difficult choices would have to be made in the coming months, we would like to assure everyone that no person in the country would be left without hope and opportunity. We will get through this," Sunak added further.

"The economic output in the UK fell by a cumulative of 22.1 percent in the last six months of 2020, in comparison to the previous year of 2019," as per the data provided by the office of national statistics. The outcome has been regarded as the worse outcome than most other major economies, including that of Germany, Italy, and France. The debt is almost double of what was recorded in the US, which was 10.6 percent. According to CNN's report, UK's economy shed 7,30,000 jobs in March. 

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"The large contractions primarily reflect how the lockdown measures have been inside the place for a large period of this period inside the UK," the office of national statistics said. 

According to CNN, "the lockdown in the UK was imposed two weeks after Italy, 10 days after Spain and a week after France". In June, lockdown restrictions were eased, which included the opening of non-essential shops. The office for statistics had reported that  'the GDP had increased to 8.7 percent in the previous month.'

"The UK had a total of 313,402 cases and 46,611 fatalities on Wednesday" according to the COVID-19 data released by John Hopkins University. 

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(with inputs from ANI)