London’s economy has grown almost twice as fast as its closest rival in the regions and added more than 250,000 jobs since the onset of the credit crunch, official figures showed today.
Between September 2007 and September 2012 the capital’s economy grew by 12.4%, the Office for National Statistics says.
This far outstrips the 6.8% advance of its closest rival, the south-west, and is more than five times faster than the 2.3% growth which was seen by the east Midlands.
The figures, which do not adjust for inflation, mean that London’s share of overall output rose from 20.7% to 21.9% over the period.
The capital’s labour market performance has also outshone other parts of the UK with an improvement of 0.9 percentage points, compared to a 1.7 percentage point decline for the rest of the country.
London meanwhile added 267,000 jobs over the period when all other regions, except got the south-east and Wales, saw declines.
The capital also stretched the wealth gap over the rest of the country with average household income per head 30% above the UK average in 2010, while its productivity was 29% above the British average in 2011.
