macro current stats

• Annual growth in the UK economy in 2023 was 0.1%, a very poor performance and the economy is technically in recession
• Factors weighing on UK economic growth

  • High interest rates
  • High personal taxation
  • Cuts to government spending
  • Low consumer and business confidence
• Factors constraining UK's long-run supply performance

  • Poor productivity
  • Shrinking labour force
  • Poor infrastructure
  • Underperforming public services
  • Weak business investment
• UK economic growth forecast for 2024 is 0.8%
• UK is estimated to be in a small negative output gap of 0.1%
• UK GDP per capita is around £36,000
• The size of the UK economy is estimated to be around £2.53 trillion
• UK unemployment rate currently stands at 4.2%, above the natural rate of 3.5%
• The employment rate in the UK is 74.5%, lower than pre-pandemic
• UK economic inactivity rate is 22.2%, notably higher than pre-pandemic
• Drivers of rising economic inactivity include long-term sickness and older workers not returning to the workforce
• UK real wage growth is currently 5.6%, higher than inflation at 3.2%
• Youth unemployment in the UK is 11%
• UK consumer confidence is very weak due to the cost-of-living crisis
• UK CPI inflation is currently 3.2%, above the 2% target but on a downward trend
• UK core inflation, excluding volatile items, is 4.2%, more than double the target
• UK producer price inflation (PPI) is currently 0.6%, much lower than CPI
• UK households expect inflation to be 3.3% in the coming year
• If n is low like it is at the moment only 0.6% it means that those input prices could be falling or they're rising in a very very slow rate which is good news and if it's lower than the CPI it means in the future we expect the CPI rate to come down
• Inflation expectations are at 3.3% so households expect inflation to still be stubborn in the UK
• Wage growth is running quite hot at 5.6% causing complication with the whole inflation picture and policy decisions
• The UK has a current account deficit of 3.2% of GDP
• The average size of the UK's current account deficit has been around 4% over the last decade or 15 years
• Factors keeping the UK's current account deficit high


  • Productivity has been awful in the UK ever since the financial crisis
  • Very weak business investment, blamed on Brexit
  • Extremely high minimum wages in the UK, one of the highest in the world
• The pound is very weak


  It has been weak ever since the Brexit vote in June 2016
• One pound at the moment can buy you $1.24 and £1.16, compared to $1.60 and €1.40 prior to the Brexit vote
• The weakness of the pound has not helped improve the UK's current account deficit
• The UK government is running a budget deficit of 4.2% of GDP in the most recent fiscal year 2023 to 2024
• The UK's national debt is currently standing at 98% of GDP
• UK government bond yields have gone up to 4.2% on average
• Contractionary fiscal policy


  Measures taken by the government to reduce the budget deficit, such as increasing income tax rates and freezing tax bands
• Freezing the income tax bands to 2029 is forecast to raise the government an extra £45 billion a year by 2028
• The Bank of England base rate is currently 5.25%, up from 0.1% in December 2021
• The average lending rate is 6.25%, as banks pass on higher interest rates to consumers and businesses
• Consumer confidence and business confidence in the UK are extremely weak at the moment
• The savings ratio in the UK is 10.5%, quite high for historical standards