Due to the onslaught of the Coronavirus, millions lost their jobs globally or had their salaries deducted, as countries went into recession. The UK was one such country that officially entered into recession as its GDP slumped by 20.4 per cent in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2020 – the largest quarterly contraction in the UK economy since the quarterly records began in 1955.
After a brief moment of recovery, the UK implemented strict lockdown measures again in response to concerns about new variants of the virus. This has brought upon a lot of uncertainty on the UK job market, with the ONS reporting that the UK unemployment rate for all people was 5.1 per cent, as per the October to December 2020 estimates. This was 1.3 per cent points higher than a year earlier and 0.4 percentage points higher than the previous quarter.