View from City Road: Statistics put paid to recessionary superlatives

The Chancellor officially declared the recession over yesterday. Onshore gross domestic product - the sort of national output that directly creates jobs, unlike the sort that includes North Sea oil and gas - rose by 0.6 per cent in the first quarter, rather more than the markets had been expecting.

The Central Statistical Office's present estimate is that the bottom of the recession was touched in the first quarter of last year, and that we have been bumping along since then as flat as economies can be. Including oil, the economy has been on an upwards trend since the second quarter. As a result, the CSO has taken a scythe to the superlatives. This was never the deepest post-war recession, and it is now not even the longest.

In American parlance, onshore growth is running at an annualised 2.4 per cent. If this rate is sustained through the year, the average level of national output will rise by some 1.5 per cent in 1993 compared with 1992. The second quarter may be slower than the first, which was probably buoyed by the need to replenish stocks and meet final demand. But if unemployment continues falling, a heartened consumer should ensure that any pause is short-lived.

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