Previously, Alexander worked sometimes until one o’clock at night in the kitchen of his restaurant, and then was cleaned up after the rush of guests all again. Now the 25-year-old chef has nothing more to do. For the past three months, since the beginning of the Corona-lock downs, he is free to “leave”. The Food Hall on the Tottenham Court Road in the centre of London is largely because of to leave. In the Restaurants, Bistros and cafes in the building were busy right up to the Corona-crisis, with about fifty folks – all of them have lost their Jobs first.
Philip Plickert
economic correspondent based in London.
F. A. Z.
Some foreigners, the Brazilians, for example, went back to her home, a couple of help now on a voluntary kitchen, tells Alexander. Many sit for three months, only at home on the Sofa. The young chef lives with his mother in their apartment. From the state wage rate, which is a maximum of 80 percent of the salary – is it the after tax are less than 1500 pounds, he could afford in London in a flat of our own. “I desperately want to be back to work,” he says. However, the future is highly uncertain. He does not know what time is the rather narrow Restaurant is allowed to open. “And it is uncertain whether to open it to make sense, when there are too few customers.”
The Corona-crisis has hit the British economy – as well as in other countries – like a Tornado and leaving a trail of destruction. “The activity across the economy is collapsing,” says Andy Haldane, the chief economist of the Central Bank. According to Figures from the statistics office the ONS, the economy is broken into power in April to 20.4 percent – was three times as much as in the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. In some industries, such as the hospitality industry, the business arrived to a complete standstill. Construction activity fell by 40 percent.
The consequence of mass Non-employment is. Haldane refers to Furloughed on the number of more than 8 million “” and the self-employed, receiving state support. That is nearly a third of all in employment in the private sector. “Such a Level of inactivity on the labour market, we have never seen before,” says Haldane.
labour market before the crisis, in “excellent condition”
The contrast to the pre-crisis period, is particularly painful. “Before the Corona pandemic, the labour market in excellent condition,” says Cyrille Lenoel from the research Institute of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR). The unemployment rate was 3.9 percent, the lowest level since the mid-seventies. Only 1.3 million people were reported to in February without a job. Then, Corona and the “Lockdown”, the decommissioning of large parts of the economy and of public life came. In the official unemployment statistics, one sees a little because you are lagging behind.
it is Visible, however, is that already 3 million people with Universal Credit have claimed social power, much of it, because they have become unemployed. A million Emma. The young woman was a waitress in a Café-chain, on the day of the Corona-lock downs the boss sent to all of a dismissal mail. Now she lives with her sister and their friend in a small apartment. The sister is driving Uber-Taxi – however, they will often wait for hours in vain for a passenger.
