11 January 2018

Mayor of London: Almost 500,000 UK jobs under threat from ‘no deal’ hard Brexit

In London alone, there could be as many as 87,000 fewer jobs and the capital’s economic output could be two per cent lower by 2030 than predicted under the status quo.

The findings are in an analysis of the potential impact of five different Brexit scenarios on London and the whole of the UK, commissioned by the Mayor last year from leading economic analysts Cambridge Econometrics. The document also looks at the impact each Brexit scenario could have on nine key sectors of the economy.

The independent research shows that every Brexit outcome analysed would be bad for the British economy, but that the harder the Brexit, the more severe the economic damage could be.

The analysis also shows that London’s economy would suffer significantly less from Brexit than the rest of the UK. For example, economic output across the rest of the UK could be on average between 3 per cent and 3.3 per cent lower by 2030 than it would if Britain were to remain within the Single Market and Customs Union compared with between 1.9 per cent and 2.1 per cent down in London. This would widen geographic inequalities across the UK.

Sadiq announced last month that that he had commissioned the independent analysis from Cambridge Econometrics, just days after Brexit secretary David Davis admitted that the Government had not produced detailed economic impact assessments as previously claimed.

If the UK leaves the European Union in March 2019 with no deal on the single market, customs union or transition arrangements –  which remains a real possibility given the short amount of time left to secure a deal and the Government’s mishandling of the negotiations to date – there could be 482,000 fewer jobs across the entire UK, together with 15 per cent – or £46.8bn - less investment than with a continuation of the status quo. The UK’s economic output (measured by Gross Value Added) could fall by 3 per cent by 2030 – the equivalent of £54.5bn.

The worst affected key sector in a no-deal hard Brexit scenario would be financial and professional services, which could have up to 119,000 fewer jobs nationally than would otherwise be the case. There could be 92,000 fewer jobs in science and technology, 43,000 fewer jobs in construction and 27,000 fewer jobs across the UK’s creative sector. [...]

Full press release

Full report

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