Across the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Union, gross domestic products (GDP) decreased in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, by 2021, growth rates were positive in all four areas again. The United Kingdom, Germany, and the European Union all experiencing slow economic growth in 2023 amid high inflation, with Germany even seeing an economic recession. GDP and its components GDP refers to the total market value of all goods and services that are produced within a country per year. It is composed of government spending, consumption, business investments and net exports. It is an important indicator to measure the economic strength of a country. Economists rely on a variety of factors when predicting future performance of the GDP. Inflation rate is one of the economic indicators providing insight into the future behavior of households, which make up a significant proportion of GDP. Projections are based on the past performance of such information. Future considerations Some factors can be more easily predicted than others. For example, projections of the annual inflation rate of the United States are easy to come by. However, the intensity and impact of something like Brexit is difficult to predict. Moreover, the occurrence and impact of events such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine is difficult to foresee. Hence, actual GDP growth may be higher or lower than the original estimates.

According to adults in the United Kingdom, the main negative effect of Brexit as of 2023 was that the economy had been damaged, and that it had made things more expensive, with 47 percent of people supporting these two views, respectively. By contrast, just five percent of people thought there had been no negative effects of Brexit.

This statistic shows gross domestic product (GDP) of the European Union from 2019 to 2029 in billion international dollars. In 2023, the EU's GDP amounted to about 18.58 trillion U.S. dollars. Brexit and the economy of the European Union The European Union is still recovering from the crisis in 2008, but it is by no means making an impressive comeback and 2016 has not started out on the right foot either. Total GDP of the European Union staggered in 2012 and even moreso in 2015. Recent events are also bound to reduce consumer confidence and drag down growth. The year began with the economic slowdown in China and has continued on with the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union. The long term effects this decision is expected to have have an overall negative effect on GDP growth within the European Union. However, the effects will likely hit the UK and Ireland more so. By 2030, it is expected that the GDP growth of the European Union will be negative at around minus 0.36 percent. Even considering an optimistic scenario, GDP of the UK is expected to decrease by 2.72 percent by 2030, as well - a pessimistic forecast even reducing GDP growth to a 7.7 percent decrease. Yet, it is still too early to tell how Brexit will play out in reality, but it will almost certainly impact current future projections of GDP growth in the European Union and the Euro Area.

Economic development is interregional in nature, with economic growth being determined by physical and technological proximity identified by interregional and national cross-border interactions in trade, investments, and knowledge. This report explains the construction of a system of multiregional input-output tables for the EU28 interlinked with trade in goods and services within the same country as well as with regions in other Member States. Taking transhipment locations into account, trade in goods and services is derived from freight transport data, airline data on flights, and business travel data. The methodology is centred on the probability of trade flows and was developed to fit the information available without pre-imposing any geographical structure on the data.

The Economic Impacts of Brexit on the UK, its Sectors, its Cities and its Regions What are the economic impacts of Brexit on the UK's sectors, regions and cities? The findings from our recent research suggest that the UK's cities and regions which voted for Brexit are also the most economically dependent on EU markets for their prosperity and viability. This is a result of their differing sectoral and trade composition. Different impacts are likely for different sectors, and also different impacts are likely between sectors, and these relationships also differ across the country's regions. Some sectors, some regions and some cities will be more sensitive and susceptible to any changes in UK-EU trade relations which may arise from Brexit than others and their long-run competiveness positions will be less robust and more vulnerable than others. This suggests that these sectoral and regional differences need to be very carefully taken into account in the context of the national UK-EU negotiations in order for the post-Brexit agreements to be politically, socially as well as economically sustainable across the country. This project aims to examine in detail the likely impacts of Brexit on the UK's sectors, regions and cities by using the most detailed regional-national-international trade and competition datasets currently available anywhere in the world (and the people who built these data). These two datasets, are the 2016 WIOD World Input-Output Database and the 2016 UK Interregional Trade Datasets developed respectively by the University of Groningen and by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. WIOD covers 43 countries, 56 sectors and 15 years of trade-GDP-demand relationships, while the EU Interregional Tables covers 59 sectors and 240 EU regions. The quantitative research will allow us to understand the role in shaping UK regional trade behaviour which is played by global value-chains, whereby goods and services crisscross borders multiple times before being finally consumed by household and firms. The UK is heavily integrated with the rest of the EU via such global value-chains and reshaping the future post-Brexit UK trade arrangements with the EU will also involve reconfiguring these global value-chains. Our data allows us to examine the impacts of different trade scenarios and to map out the sensitivity of UK sectors and regions to different post-Brexit scenarios. Brexit will also reshape the national and international competiveness rankings of the UK regions and again our data allows us to examine the likely long run changes which will arise. At the same time, these changes will also all have profound implications for the design and governance of UK city and regional development policy logic and settings. However, the withdrawal of EU Cohesion Funds, alongside changing UK-EU trade relationships means that both the economic and the public policy environment facing local regions will shift significantly. The ongoing UK devolution agenda at the level of both the three devolved national administrations as well as the English city-regions will be heavily affected by the changing external environment and our project will identify the governance, policy and institutional options which key stakeholders perceive to offer the greatest possibilities for adjusting to the new realities. Our quantitative research will therefore also be undertaken in parallel with qualitative research based on key stakeholder engagement sessions. Participatory workshops with city, regional and national stakeholders will be organised in order to develop alternative post-Brexit scenarios for empirical analysis as perceived by the city and regional as well as national institutions. The mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches will allow us to identity the impacts of Brexit at the crucial meso-levels of the individual sectors, the individual cities and the individual regions.

The statistic shows the trade balance of goods (exports minus imports of goods) in the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2023. A positive value means a trade surplus, a negative trade balance means a trade deficit. In 2023, the trade deficit of goods in the United Kingdom amounted to about 270.48 billion U.S. dollars. On the effects of Brexit on the UK's economy The United Kingdom has maintained a trade deficit over the last ten years, but now that the country has chosen to leave the European Union, current trade agreements will need to be renegotiated and trade relationships and the trade balance will change. As of 2015, one of the UK’s most important import and export partners was Germany, but it also trades heavily with many other countries within the European Union; more than half of total value of the UK trade in goods is associated with European Union countries. Trade agreements which have been negotiated by the European Union extend beyond member countries, and the United Kingdom will now have to renegotiate its own trade deals with a far larger number of countries by itself. It remains to be seen as to how the UK will manage these negotiations. Another big question is how the UK banking sector will be able to access the European market. As of 2014, services contributed close to 80 percent of UK GDP, which includes banking services. While it is too soon predict how BREXIT will impact the United Kingdom entirely, estimates of the decision’s long term effects estimate negative GDP growth of around 2.72 percent in an optimistic scenario, with the pessimistic scenario estimating negative growth of around 7.7 percent.

In 2023, agriculture contributed around 0.58 percent to the United Kingdom’s GDP, 17.5 percent came from the manufacturing industry, and 72.53 percent from the services sector. The UK is not a farmer’s marketThe vast majority of the UK’s GDP is generated by the services sector, and tourism in particular keeps the economy going. In 2017, almost 214 billion British Pounds were contributed to the GDP through travel and tourism – about 277 billion U.S. dollars – and the forecasts see an upwards trend. For comparison, only an estimated 10.3 billion GBP were generated by the agriculture sector in the same year. But is it a tourist’s destination still? Though forecasts are not in yet, it is unclear whether travel and tourism can keep the UK’s economy afloat in the future, especially after Brexit and all its consequences. Higher travel costs, having to wait for visas, and overall more complicated travel arrangements are just some of the concerns tourists have when considering vacationing in the UK after Brexit. Consequences of the referendum are already observable in the domestic travel industry: In 2017, about 37 percent of British travelers said Brexit caused them to cut their holidays short by a few days, and about 14 percent said they did not leave the UK for their holidays because of it.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the value of exports from the United Kingdom amounted to approximately 206.3 billion British pounds, while imports to the country amounted to around 217.8 billion pounds, resulting in a trade deficit of around 11.5 billion pounds in this quarter. During this time period, the value of UK exports was highest in the fourth quarter of 2022, with the value of imports peaking in the third quarter of 2022. The UK's main trade partners Despite the UK leaving the EU in 2020 following the Brexit referendum of 2016, Europe remains the main destination for UK exports, with almost half of UK exports heading there in 2023. During the same year, just over 60 percent of imports came from European countries, compared with around 17.9 percent from countries in Asia, and 11.8 percent from the Americas. In terms of individual countries, the United States was the UK's leading export partner for both goods and services from the UK, while Germany was the main source of UK goods imports, and the U.S. for service imports. It is as yet unclear how the return of Donald Trump to the White House will impact UK/US trade relations, should the President follow through with threats made on the campaign trail to increase trade tariffs. Brexit rethink under Starmer? Although generally more pro-European than the previous government, the new Labour government, led by Keir Starmer, does not plan to rejoin the European Union, or the Single Market. Public opinion, while gradually turning against Brexit recently, has not coalesced around a particular trading relationship. In late 2023, a survey indicated that while 31 percent of British adults wanted to rejoin the EU, a further 30 percent wanted to simply improve relations with the EU, instead of rejoining. Just 11 percent of respondents wanted to join the single market but not the EU, while 10 percent were happy with the relationship as it was. At the start of 2025, after several months in office, the new government has not signalled any major change in direction regarding on this, but has broadly signalled it wants a better relationship with the EU.

As of January 2025, 55 percent of people in Great Britain thought that it was wrong to leave the European Union, compared with 30 percent who thought it was the right decision. During this time period, the share of people who regret Brexit has been slightly higher than those who support it, except for some polls in Spring 2021, which showed higher levels of support for Brexit. The share of people who don’t know whether Brexit was the right or wrong decision has generally been stable and usually ranged between 11 and 14 percent. Is Bregret setting in? Since late July 2022, the share of people who regret Brexit in these surveys has consistently been above 50 percent. Additionally, a survey from January 2025 highlighted that most people in the UK thought that Brexit had had a mainly negative impact, especially on the cost of living and the economy. Despite there being a clear majority of voters who now regret Brexit, there is as yet no particular future relationship with the EU that has overwhelming support. As of late 2023, 31 percent of Britons wanted to rejoin the EU, while 30 percent merely wanted to improve trade relations and not rejoin either the EU or the single market. Leave victory in 2016 defied the polls In the actual referendum, which took place on June 23, 2016, Leave won 51.9 percent of the votes and Remain 48.1 percent, after several polls in the run-up to the referendum put Remain slightly ahead. Remain were anticipated to win until early results from North East England suggested that Leave had performed far better than expected, with this pattern replicated throughout the country. This event was repeated somewhat in the U.S. election of that year, which saw Donald Trump win several key swing states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, despite predictions that these states would vote for Hillary Clinton.

The statistic shows the growth rate in the real GDP in the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2023, with projections up until 2029. In 2023, the rate of GDP growth in the United Kingdom was at around 0.34 percent compared to the previous year.The economy of the United KingdomGDP is used an indicator as to the shape of a national economy. It is one of the most regularly called upon measurements regarding the economic fitness of a country. GDP is the total market value of all final goods and services that have been produced in a country within a given period of time, usually a year. Inflation adjusted real GDP figures serve as an even more telling indication of a country’s economic state in that they act as a more reliable and clear tool as to a nation’s economic health. The gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate in the United Kingdom has started to level in recent years after taking a huge body blow in the financial collapse of 2008. The UK managed to rise from the state of dark desperation it was in between 2009 and 2010, from -3.97 to 1.8 percent. The country suffered acutely from the collapse of the banking industry, raising a number of questions within the UK with regards to the country’s heavy reliance on revenues coming from London's financial sector, arguably the most important in the world and one of the globe’s financial command centers. Since the collapse of the post-war consensus and the rise of Thatcherism, the United Kingdom has been swept along in a wave of individualism - collective ideals have been abandoned and the mass privatisation of the heavy industries was unveiled - opening them up to market competition and shifting the economic focus to that of service.The Big Bang policy, one of the cornerstones of the Thatcher government programs of reform, involved mass and sudden deregulation of financial markets. This led to huge changes in the way the financial markets in London work, and saw the many old firms being absorbed by big banks. This, one could argue, strengthened the UK financial sector greatly and while frivolous and dangerous practices brought the sector into great disrepute, the city of London alone brings in around one fifth of the countries national income making it a very prominent contributor to wealth in the UK.

This statistic displays a breakdown of United Kingdom (UK) outbound tourism spending in the European Union (27 countries) by product category in 2016. Accommodation accounted for 19 percent of UK travelers' spending in the EU.

The European Union has experienced a shift in its biggest trade partners since the early 2000s. Over the past two decades, the share of EU imports flowing from China has more than doubled, from around 8 percent in 2002 to over 20 percent in 2023, making China the EU's largest external import partner. At the same time, the proportion of total imports coming from the United Kingdom, which was historically a large importer to EU countries (the UK was an EU member state until 2020), have more than halved, from 18 percent to 7 percent. This secular trend existed before the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016, however, there has been a notable drop in imports from the UK since Brexit was enacted in 2020. By contrast the share of the EU's import trade taken by the U.S., Switzerland, and the Rest of World have remained relatively stable over this period. The share of exports coming from Russia was growing steadily in the period before 2014, after which the EU imposed economic sanctions on Russia due to the illegal annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. Imports from Russia collapsed in 2023, due to the effect of the additional economic sanctions placed on Russia in response to the full scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022.The Russian Federation is now only the tenth largest exporter to the EU, after India, Japan, and South Korea.

As of the fourth quarter of 2024, the value of goods exported to the European Union from the United Kingdom was over 42.1 billion British pounds, compared with around 76.7 billion pounds of goods imported, resulting in a negative goods trade balance with the EU of around approximately 34.6 billion pounds.

The unemployment rate of the United Kingdom was 4.4 percent in January 2025, unchanged from the previous month. Before the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK had relatively low levels of unemployment, comparable with the mid-1970s. Between January 2000 and the most recent month, unemployment was highest in November 2011 when the unemployment rate hit 8.5 percent. Will unemployment continue to rise in 2025? Although low by historic standards, there has been a noticeable uptick in the UK's unemployment rate, with other labor market indicators also pointing to further loosening. In December 2024, the number of job vacancies in the UK, fell to its lowest level since May 2021, while payrolled employment declined by 47,000 compared with November. Whether this is a continuation of a broader cooling of the labor market since 2022, or a reaction to more recent economic developments, such as upcoming tax rises for employers, remains to be seen. Forecasts made in late 2024 suggest that the unemployment rate will remain relatively stable in 2025, averaging out at 4.1 percent, and falling again to four percent in 2026.
Demographics of the unemployed As of the third quarter of 2024, the unemployment rate for men was slightly higher than that of women, at 4.4 percent, compared to 4.1 percent. During the financial crisis at the end of the 2000s, the unemployment rate for women peaked at a quarterly rate of 7.7 percent, whereas for men, the rate was 9.1 percent. Unemployment is also heavily associated with age, and young people in general are far more vulnerable to unemployment than older age groups. In late 2011, for example, the unemployment rate for those aged between 16 and 24 reached 22.3 percent, compared with 8.2 percent for people aged 25 to 34, while older age groups had even lower peaks during this time.