Recession over for UK

It was announced last week that the UK has finally come out of recession. All of the other major economies had already come out of recession, with the UK left lagging behind but following the release of recent figures the UK has now joined the other countries that have at last shaken off the recession and can now start looking forward. Figures showed that in the final three months of 2009 the UK economy grew by 0.1 percent.

Whilst it is good news that the UK is now out of a recession that has been the longest and deepest in many decades there are still concerns about the low level by which the economy grew in the last three months of last year.

The 0.1 percent level of growth that was seen in the final quarter was much lower than had been predicted by industry experts. Based on this some industry officials have warned that this could be a double dip recession, where it appears that the economy has come out of recession but very quickly slides back into recession again.

On the upside there have been other signs of recovery in the economy, such as improvements in the financial and property markets as well as a drop in unemployment levels. However, the UK has been slow to come out of recession, with major economies such as Germany, France, Japan, and the United States all having come out of recession last year.

One economist commented on the low level of growth, stating: “The Q4 GDP figures are a major blow to hopes that the UK economy had emerged decisively from recession in Q4. No doubt some commentators will claim that the figures are under-estimating the true strength of the recovery and will be revised up in time. That is certainly possible. But it won’t change the big picture of an economy still operating way below both its pre-recession and trend levels of output.”

Tags: Late 2000s recession in Europe, recessions, economics, Economy of the United Kingdom, United Kingdom