An end to the gloom?
So the UK has finally stumbled out of recession. Cue mass pontificating (including from us) about what this means for businesses, politicians and your average Joe.
Never ones to ignore a trend, SM will look at the impact on the profession of economic growth of 0.1 per cent in the last three months of 2009.
My guess is it had very little impact. A weaker than expected climb out of decline hardly indicates a full recovery and it doesn’t change the enormous challenges faced by businesses and the public sector. Companies are still making ugly cuts to guarantee their survival and the government is squaring up to one the biggest budget deficits in history.
What it could lead to, however, is perhaps a bit more positivity in tackling these problems. No longer can we use phrases including “in the recession” or “the recession means…”. Fantastic! These are such gloomy expressions, anchoring down sentences and perpetuating ill feeling.
Now is the time to bring out forward-looking phraseology. Try substituting the “r” word for another: recovery. “In the recovery we will…”, “the recovery means we have to…”. Now that’s better, isn’t it?
What do you think a return to economic growth means for procurement?
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It would be difficult for 0.1% to be a smaller number. Don’t get too excited, just yet.
The recession hasn’t just ended. Everyone waits for the ONS to confirm it ended at least a quarter (3 months) ago. The PMIs for Services (which dominates the economy)and Manufacturing have been in growth for many months now and the Bank of England told me (when I worked at CIPS) that they believe the PMIs more than any other indicator and far more than the ONS figures. Experts said this week that they expect the ONS to revise (as they virtually always do) their figures upwards in this case. George Soros told Robert Peston this week that UK growth will be low for a long time yet and that whilst the govt deficit has to be reduced, govt (whatever party) should not cut public spending until well into 2011 otherwise the economy will move back into recession.