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Where We Are after Lockdown 2: Time to move from Crisis Management to a Recovery Plan

By IOE Editor, on 1 December 2020

By Professor Paul Gregg, University of Bath

The last two weeks have revealed that the government has woken up to the reality of the nature of pandemic and its economic effects. The most immediate shift has been to recognise that in the absence of substantial downward pressure on socialising the virus spreads exponentially. The massive error behind Lockdown 2 was the Summer return to almost normality, just no festivals. Indeed, the government actively encouraged people to return to restaurants and pubs helping to drive infection rates back up, which again they were way too slow to respond too. As soon as Lockdown 1 ended, the return was inevitable as insufficient downward force was being applied, given the track and trace system never really got off the ground. After Lockdown 2, we will not be all Christmas parties and New Year celebrations with almost none of the country in tier 1. Many areas, like my home city, went into Lockdown 2 in tier 1 and will emerge in tier 3. It will have to be a cool quiet mid-Winter this time to stop Lockdown 3 being the result. The government is now looking to suppress the virus till vaccines are available in sufficient quantity, which plans announced suggest will be around March.

What are the economic costs?

Furlough has been extended to cover this period as the only current alternatives are very unpalatable – letting the virus rip uncontrolled or business restrictions without government support and thus mass job losses. The Bank of England has allowed this extension to March to be possible through further Quantitative Easing (QE) buying up government debt. The government’s attempts to reduce spending by reducing financial support in plans announced in the late summer and early autumn are the can that has been kicked down the road again. So the government is now trapped in the current spending scenario until there’s an endgame from vaccines.

The state of the economy in September, before local lockdowns, became widespread and Lockdown 2, was 8.5% below its pre-Covid peak. This was the peak of re-opening the economy. Obviously, this high point of openness in the economy will not be reached again now until April at the earliest. In March 2021, one year on from the start of the pandemic, the economy will still be 10% down. Only the Great Depression compares with this. Without the government Furlough scheme, with its massive costs, 10% lower GDP would mean 10% lower employment, as firms cannot hold staff when under such extreme pressure. Unemployment would be heading to 14% and could have been worse if fear of these job losses drives down consumer spending.

Somewhat less obvious is the realisation that the recovery will be protracted. It will be late Summer 2022 before the economy is back to peak levels and more importantly, the prognosis now is we never get back the two and half years of lost growth. This economic cost will translate into lost wages from the downward pressure of unemployment and low productivity growth as businesses are not investing (see the useful Resolution Foundation report on the Autumn Statement). What has not been highlighted enough is that we are not all in this together. This pain will only fall on those below retirement age. The triple lock on the state pension and more importantly DB occupational pensions being linked to inflation (in most cases the generous RPI measure) means little change in current pensioner incomes from the virus. Only those reliant on earnings now will suffer, but of course, when those aged 50 or less reach retirement their pension pots will have been reduced from less being put in. The under 50s will lose out twice over.

Implications

The job preservation strategy behind the furlough scheme has massive value but also limitations which will be increasingly obvious and unjust on those not in work. We are putting huge amounts of resources into holding jobs open but next to nothing to help those who fall out of work.
This is being made clear by the last labour market data and will be even more so by the next instalment. Mass job losses are being stemmed by furlough but there is a moderate but steady decline in employment. Jobs are seeping rather than flooding out of the economy. Over ½ million fewer working-age people were in work in September than in February – that’s one and a half percent of all employment or 70,000 a month. Redundancy levels suggest things are accelerating. January to March 2020 saw 30,000 redundancies a month, April to June 44,000, July to September 100,000. The rapid increases for 3-month averages that have occurred every month suggest that September alone saw around 150,000 redundancies as the generosity of furlough was reduced.

But the rise in unemployment is being driven as much by the inability of those losing work to get back into employment. Vacancies fell to 40% of pre-Covid levels in Lockdown 1 but recovered to a bit under 70% before we closed much of the economy again. Lockdown 2 and tight restrictions that follow will mean low vacancy levels through till April. This combination of job loss and especially restricted re-entry always hurts the young most. Of the ½ million falls in employment more than half (270,000) comes from 16-24-year-olds. But large numbers have elected to stay in education as a result of fewer job opportunities, pegging the increase in the unemployment rate to 3% (for 35-64 it is up 0.4%). 270k fewer in work but only an extra 100k unemployed. The youth are doing the sensible thing and have been supported in this by the government and universities, but this trend won’t continue as most courses have started now.
But the deeper point is that the vast bulk of government efforts are on job preservation in struggling industries not new jobs in the rest of the economy- saving jobs for those in work but the little drive for new ones for those without. Kickstart, even after the proposed expansion, cannot start fully start with Lockdown 2 or restrictions after December the 2nd. This programme is essentially a hiring subsidy but in a labour market that isn’t hiring. The government has so far rejected the Intermediate Labour Market (ILM) of charities and the public sector that was used under the successful Future Jobs Fund in 2009/10. The new recognition of the protracted downturn means that this needs to be re-examined.

The Autumn Statement had two very small positive announcements around green and northern investment, which with earlier infrastructure announcements brings up the government support for new job creation to around 10% of the total economic supports for the economy (mostly furlough). The imbalance though still remains massive and the result of such little focus on job creation in a protracted recession will rise in long-term unemployment (6+ moths) through until at least April 2021.

Time for the Bank to step up?

The Bank of England is drip-feeding support to the Treasury for managing debt. What we are not having is the conversation about the total envelope that will eventually be made available and what a coherent strategy for its use would look like. What is needed is for them to be asked to fund a serious plan for the investment in green industries and housing etc, not just saving the pubs. And the government needs to have a plan on how to do it. We are still in crisis mode rather than recovery planning. The Bank of England needs to adjust its thinking and urgently – it is them, not the Treasury that is the problem here.

The crunch has been delayed and the government hopes it can keep furlough going till there is a Covid endgame. Meanwhile, we are likely to be shedding 100,000 jobs a month with few ways back in for those without work and no plan for an economic recovery, beyond re-opening pubs.

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