slow news day...

lemonjelly

Jobs growth in the private sector slows:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13257986

Manufacturing growth slows:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13267525

jobs growth down for the third month in a row.
Manufacturing down to its worst level for 7 months. Lest we forget, manufacturing is supposed to be the keystone that the emergence from recession is being built on.

Oh, & household incomes are going to be hit by an average of £780 according to deloitte. Some have been suggesting that for a while.

So, is it genuine growth, or are we stumbling?:)

Generali

Looking at the figures in the articles it's probably a little early to panic. Vacancies are up 22% year on year in the private sector and up from last month too.

Manufacturing is still growing quite strongly (PMI>50% means growth) just less strongly than it was.

I'm not saying the UK is doing amazingly: interest rates of 0.5% and a deficit of over £100,000,000,000 shows that the economy is not fine. Things are still improving however, according to the data quoted in the articles at least.

purch

I'm going for "stumbling".....but we are still on our feet and making some headway.

Blacklight

The worst is now behind us. We just need the whining public sector workers to get over themselves and everything will be just dandy. Unfortunately most of them work for the BBC so that might take all year.

Things are on the up, by 2012 we'll be looking forward to the Olympics, European cup and Queens Diamond jubilee.

The main thing is there's no bloody house price crash and isn't likely to be until the bottom of the next economic cycle, which will no doubt be presided over by some left wing prime minister that's been using the public coffers to pay people for votes over a 13 year term... sometime in 2033 perhaps?

Thrugelmir

Blacklight wrote: »

The worst is now behind us.

I admire your optimism. The hard part may yet be to come.

Thrugelmir

lemonjelly wrote: »

J
jobs growth down for the third month in a row.
Manufacturing down to its worst level for 7 months. Lest we forget, manufacturing is supposed to be the keystone that the emergence from recession is being built on.

When you consider that consumer spending accounts for 65% of GDP. Any positive news is welcomed.

nembot

Blacklight wrote: »

The worst is now behind us.

As Thrugal suggested, the recovery is likely to be worse than the recession - history testifies to this, unless it's different this time?

lemonjelly

To add to the original theme behind the thread, construction is also slowing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13280030

I find this interesting, because over the past 2 years, we've generally had series after series of contrasting and conflicting reports. Inflation up, high street sales up, one sector reports a downturn, another reports an upturn. This has created a lot of difficulty in assessing the current situation.

Although it is only a snapshot, & doesn't cover the whole spectrum, we now have a series of news stories highlighting a slowdown. Whilst I accept that the positive side is there is still growth, it is reduced growth, & causes me to ask whether it is a sign of an overall slowdown in the economy?

Generali

lemonjelly wrote: »

To add to the original theme behind the thread, construction is also slowing.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13280030

I find this interesting, because over the past 2 years, we've generally had series after series of contrasting and conflicting reports. Inflation up, high street sales up, one sector reports a downturn, another reports an upturn. This has created a lot of difficulty in assessing the current situation.

Although it is only a snapshot, & doesn't cover the whole spectrum, we now have a series of news stories highlighting a slowdown. Whilst I accept that the positive side is there is still growth, it is reduced growth, & causes me to ask whether it is a sign of an overall slowdown in the economy?

There are several drags on the economy at the moment and TBH they aren't going away.

The biggie is debt. Debt moves consumption in time from tomorrow until today. The household sector pretty much got to a point where increasing debt was unable or unwilling to be sustained. Now Governments have taken on a lot of that debt and more but again are increasingly finding it hard to carry on borrowing.

As a result, the debt is being repaid. Businesses are repaying debt (£6,000,000,000 of it in the last 3 months), consumers are taking on a little bit of nominal debt (up 1.1% in the past year) but in real/inflation adjusted terms their debts are falling in value and even the last Labour Government conceded that state borrowing had to fall.