UK economy shrank by over 20% in April, biggest drop ever

The UK Office for National Statistics has published data showing that the UK economy shrank by 20.4% in April of this year, the BBC reports.

According to the ONS, the fall affected virtually every sector of the economy, and is three times greater than the decline in the economy during the 2008-9 recession, "the biggest [drop] the UK has ever seen ... and almost ten times larger than the steepest pre-Covid-19 fall," said Jonathan Athow, deputy national statistician for economic statistics at the ONS.