London will be the fastest-growing city in 2025. If so, how will it impact the many products and services that are available to the market like income protection insurance. The debate continues about the importance and relevance for London workers to have income protection and protection insurance.
The media is constantly bombarded with news stories about London businesses closing and other companies in London moving forward with redundancies. However, a recent report from Citi Group suggests some good news for London. It is important that you understand the assumptions behind this report and don’t get too carried away. This report can be misinterpreted as indicating that London is soon to emerge from its financial troubles and that income protection and payment protection insurance are no longer available to Londoners.
A Citi Group study found that London will experience the greatest meaningful GDP growth between now and 2025. This means London will outperform its competitors. London will surpass Chicago by achieving this position due to its strong performance in financial services and tourism. This will likely happen in the middle of next decade. London will become the fourth-largest economy in terms number of cities. Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo will retain their first three pole positions.
Although there are many opinions on London’s growth prospects, Citi analysts believe that the financial district can help London achieve that desired position. London will also benefit from the prediction that London’s population will not grow, or at best be nearly stagnant, even as the economy grows. This is a positive factor in terms of its per-capita growth. London’s per capita GDP will rise from $65,698 to $95,266 in 2008 to 2025. This is a more than 45% increase. London’s total GDP is projected to reach $821 Billion. This is less than half the GDP forecast for Tokyo, whose GDP is expected grow from $1.48 Billion to $1.98 Billion by 2025.
Although the numbers are very impressive and a positive sign for London and the UK’s financial services sector, they are based on some rather optimistic assumptions. London’s ability to deliver higher numbers and no population growth over the next ten years is a significant one. As with all statistics, the reality of these projections depends on the assumptions made. It is absurd to assume that London’s population will not change over the next 15 year. According to all government statistics, immigration has not slowed down. This will mean that banks and other financial institutions will have to change their business models in order to reduce the number of redundancies. The financial sector is home to less than half of London’s population and will soon be replaced by the Telecom, Media and Advertisement industries. The reality is that there will be many redundancies, regardless of immigration status. This is due to fundamental changes in UK’s finance market business model. There is a lot of information that suggests that there is an excess of IT and project management personnel. Once the backend systems from the banks that merged several years ago are integrated, it is likely that there will be a new wave in redundancies.
It is crucial that people don’t get misled by headline-grabbing analysis. They should not be afraid of their incomes and payments.
The bottom line is that if you want to be economically active, you need a steady income stream, a job that will be in demand, or be realistic and invest your money in an accident, sickness, and unemployment policy. This article does not discuss Citi Group’s research that is based on weak assumptions. It should be clear that this article is not misleading.