The United Kingdom has officially fallen into recession for the first time since the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, amid the Covid-19 pandemic that has left the global economy battered.

Recession largely due to pandemic

With over 310,000 confirmed cases and 46,000 Covid-19 related deaths, the country has been badly hit by pandemic measures and lockdowns, pushing the economy into recession.

UK suffered its biggest slump between April to June 2020, shrinking 20.4 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2020, BBC reported.

The UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that the economy saw some improvements in June as lockdown and movement restrictions by the government began easing.

However, numbers remain below pre-pandemic months.

The collapse in output was driven by the closure of services such as shops, hotels, restaurants, schools and car repair shops, said the ONS.

The services sector, which makes up around 80 per cent of the UK economy, was the most badly hit in the second quarter of the year.

Likely to be UK's worst recession since post-WWI

According to The Guardian, the current recession is expected to be the deepest annual slump in nearly a century, since the post-first world war slump from 1920 to 1926.

The UK's slump is also estimated to be one of the biggest among advanced economies in the world, according to BBC.

The decline of the UK economy in the second quarter is roughly twice the size of declines in Germany and the United States.

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