Britain is suffering the worst post-Covid economic recovery in the G7 as its workforce stays at home, official data shows.

Quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) in the first three months of this year was still 0.5pc below its pre-pandemic level, as public sector strikes hit growth, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). 

This makes the UK the only member of the G7 whose economy has not exceeded its pre-Covid peak, according to analysis by Pantheon Macroeconomics.

The figures were in stark contrast to the US, where quarterly GDP was up by 5.3pc compared to the last three months of 2019. 

In Italy and France, GDP was up by 2.4pc and 1.3pc respectively over the same period.

Although in Germany GDP was down by 0.1pc compared to at the end of 2019, the German economy surpassed its pre-pandemic level earlier in 2022. In the UK, by contrast, quarterly GDP is still yet to exceed the 2019 benchmark.

Strikes were key in holding back economic growth at the start of this year, the ONS said. Education, health, public administration and defence and transport and storage – the sectors that saw industrial action during the first three months of the year – recorded respective declines of 0.7pc, 0.5pc, 0.7pc and 1pc.

The blow is likely to get worse, warned Samuel Tombs, of Pantheon Macroeconomics. “Public sector strikes look set to weigh a little more heavily on GDP in Q2 than in Q1,” he said. 

“We think that the MPC’s new forecast for GDP to simply hold steady in Q2 is in the right ballpark, given that public sector strikes look set to weigh a little more heavily on GDP in Q2 than in Q1, and output at many businesses will be slightly lower than normal in May due to the lost working day for the King’s coronation.”