The current global financial crisis is the result of the imbalances in the world economy that have been accumulating over the last two decades. Hence, the recession was much worse than it was in the previous years. There have been considerable changes in the sectoral arrangements in the UK economy. The economy has moved from manufacturing to services. This shift has been capitalized the most by the financial sector (Jones 2009, p. 19). The main objective of this research is to find out the effects of the recession on the British economy. In particular, the paper focuses the effect on primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors of the economy. The aims of the research are as follows:
What is the effect of the recession on the UK economy?
How has the recession affected those most at risk?
Will the recession bring about a rebalancing of the UK economy?
How has the recession impacted the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy?
The global financial crisis
The global financial crisis has hit the economies world over. The case of the UK economy is no different. As a consequence of the recession there is a need to regulate and restructure the economy. This is the only way for sustainable growth. A few sectors of the economy have suffered more than the other sectors. These include asset management, wholesale finance and housing finance. This is so because the financial sector is one of the key sectors of the UK economy. The UK economy slowly started to recover from the recession at the start of 2010. Before that the trend in the economic growth remained largely contractionary (Seager 2008, p. 6). One of the reasons for this contraction was the ever high rate of unemployment. This jobless rate is the highest in the past 17 years. This was a serious disappointment as one in every five person was found to be searching for a job. The government took several initiatives to support the job search of about 721,000 unemployed people.
The emergence of the global financial crisis is in the financial sector. Hence, the impact on the UK economy was inevitable. The share of the sectors in the economy is given as follows (Stewart 2011, p. 2):
The impact of recession on the most vulnerable
The most vulnerable people in the economy may be defined as the elderly, the disabled and the young children. The recession has hit them the most. It is important to study the impact of the recession on these people as they make up the part of the overall economy. On a very broad level, the standard of living in the UK has declined. People who were previously employed were now seeking for jobs. The number of people dependent on welfare increased considerably (MacDonald 2008, p. 16). The elderly people are the group that depends the most on benefits provided by government and this dependence lasts on long term basis. The standard of living fell as more and more people were being forced to ...