BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said in a Treasury Committee hearing, “The economy was hit by a huge shock in terms of the pandemic. What we’ve had since then is a series of supply shocks, which have reduced the supply capacity of the economy relative to demand. There was a supply chain shock in the recovery from Covid. We see some evidence of that shock coming off.”
Bailey added that the job market remains “tight”. But, “employers have now begun to say that they are seeing some reduction and competition for hiring,” he added. “As yesterday’s labor market statistics demonstrated, it’s still a very tight labor market.”
Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent said, recession in the UK “could quite easily turn out to be a little bit shorter or a little bit longer. “There’s a lot of uncertainty, including about the length. We could well be in another quarter of contraction right now.”
MPC member Swati Dhingra warned, “There is a risk of overtightening. There’s already about a fairly sizable chunk of the previous rate rises that have got to take effect in terms of what they do to GDP.”
Dhingra also noted, “it’s undeniable” that “we’re seeing a much, much bigger slowdown in trade in the UK compared to the rest of the world” and “we’re definitely performing below trend in terms of the exports numbers in terms of the inputs, even probably a bit bigger than that.”
