Extent of Brexit impact on City of London revealed

The mayor of London’s financial district has told Reuters the area has lost tens of thousands of jobs since 2016

The City of London, the historical financial district within the British capital, has lost around 40,000 jobs since the country left the European Union in 2016, the local mayor has told Reuters. Michael Mainelli described Brexit as a “disaster.”

British voters opted to leave the EU by a narrow margin of 52% to 48% back in 2016, and the divorce was finalized in January 2020.

In February, Bloomberg – citing economists from Goldman Sachs – estimated that the departure has cost the UK about 5% of real GDP compared to its economic peers. According to the article, Brexit’s legacy has been a slow economy and a soaring cost of living, due to reduced trade and the loss of business investment.

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In an article on Wednesday, Reuters quoted Mainelli as saying: “We had 525,000 workers in 2016. My estimate is that we lost just short of 40,000.”

The mayor of the City of London – which is a geographically small part of Greater London but a leading global financial hub – added that rivals Dublin, Milan, Paris and Amsterdam have gained the most from the exodus of financial institutions from the UK.