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To date, the country has recorded more than 87,000 COVID-19 cases and 5,800 deaths.
Unemployment in Sweden rose from 7.0% to 9.1% in one year, according to the Swedish Public Employment Service.
At the end of August, the number of unemployed registered with the service was 475,000.
U.S
On May 8, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the official unemployment figure of 14.7 percent, which was the highest level since the Great Depression.
The pandemic also saw a large transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich, said economic analyst Jim Cramer in June. He said it was the largest transfer in modern history.
America’s GDP fell 9.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020.
In March, the Trump administration announced a $ 2 trillion financial aid package that was approved by Congress with “overwhelming” support.
This included assistance for workers, small businesses, preservation of jobs, and assistance for local governments.
When the coronavirus took off in the United States, about 16 million jobs were lost in the three weeks ending April 4.
The Guardian reported that economists expected 5.25 million Americans to file for unemployment benefits during the week.
As a result of losing their jobs, 5.4 million Americans lost their health insurance from February to May 2020.
During March and April, American consumers cut spending by the largest amount on record while increasing savings.
Reuters reported that increasing frugality reinforced expectations that the economy would take years to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
How did New Zealand do?
Professor Ilan Noy, President of the Economics of Disasters and Climate Change at Victoria University of Wellington, said that New Zealand’s GDP was expected to fall by 12.2 percent.
“This is not really news to anyone; virtually every country in the world (perhaps with the exception of China) has experienced a deep recession in the second quarter of 2020. The news is the amount of decline (for us 12 percent hundred)”.
The head of Massey University’s school of economics and finance, Professor Martin Berka, agreed.
“The drop in GDP is within the range of economic forecasts and reflects, among other things, the strength of New Zealand’s economic restrictions during the Level 4 and Level 3 lockdowns that lasted much of the second quarter.
“Although the relationship between economic cost and COVID-19 outcomes is not linear (having no constraints and having maximum constraints both achieve negative economic outcomes), New Zealand clearly opted for a more stringent approach to the outcomes of health from COVID-19, and on the sidelines, this resulted in worse economic outcomes compared to equally well-organized countries that chose a lower degree of economic restrictions (such as Germany, South Korea, the Netherlands, Taiwan, etc.) ” .
Ultimately, he said, the decision to block New Zealand was a social choice made by the government.
Professor Noy said New Zealand now needs to look to the future and recovery.
“The big question is the recovery in the third quarter, and I think we are well positioned to see a stronger recovery in the third quarter than elsewhere. So this should not be a pessimistic and fatal story, but rather one that signals that what happens next is what matters.
“Given that this is a self-imposed recession, and we’ve done a lot of the right things to keep the economy on a lifeline during the lockdown, the questions that need to be asked are whether we are doing the right thing to recover in the third quarter (and Q4, given that Q3 is almost over) “.
Other notable changes for countries’ GDP for the second quarter of 2020 according to OECS Stats include:
- Austria -10.7 percent
- Belgium -12.1 percent (provisional)
- Canada -11.5 percent
- Chile -13.2 percent
- Columbia – 14.9 percent
- Czech Republic -8.7 percent
- Denmark -6.9 percent
- Estonia -5.6 percent
- Finland -4.5 percent
- France -13.8 percent
- Germany -9.7 percent (provisional)
- Greece -14 percent (provisional)
- Hungary -14.5
- Iceland -9.1 percent
- Japan -7.9 percent
- Mexico -17.1 percent
- Romania – 12.3 percent
- Russia -3.2 percent
- Spain – 18.5 percent
- South Africa -16.4 percent
- China +11.5 percent
