"France was performing reasonably well until a couple of years ago. For example, it didn't have as deep a recession as the UK and initially recovered rather better than the UK. But it's the last couple of years where the UK has achieved a take-off, whereas France has been left on the runway"
- John Hawksworth, PwC's chief economist
U.K.'s younger workforce and flexible hour market will make Britain the second largest economy in the European Union by 2020, outperforming France. According to the PwC research, rapid employment growth and strong economic performance of the U.K. over the past year will make the U.K. the world's fifth largest economy before the end of the decade. The accountancy firm also said that rigid labour laws and slow progress on structural reforms in France will push the country's GDP ranking down over the next 20 years. Meanwhile, growth in Germany is seen to slow in the coming years due to the country's ageing population, enabling Britain, now the world's sixth largest economy, to close the gap between the two countries.
However, PwC said the growth acceleration of the Indian economy with its even younger workforce would push it up from being the 10th largest economy in 2013 to the third largest by 2030, pushing the UK back into sixth place. Therefore, PwC urged policymakers in the Britain to implement further structural reforms to guarantee that the country remained ahead of developing markets. It said a broader analysis of Britain's economy based on factors including inequality and education standards ranked the country fifth among the G7 nations. Last week a series of data showed the country's robust activity in services, manufacturing and construction sectors.
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