A local economic recession is no longer guess work

The Graph for the UK

By Dave Riley

The BBC has a short discussion on one salient fact:

The UK economy has shrunk for the second successive quarter meaning that the country is now technically in recession.

And like the days of the "Thatcher Divide" incomes are suffering more in the regions than the area around London.

Only this week the "r" world is being bandied about in Australian economic discouse in the wake of the falling omph in the Chinese economy and in succession a round of layoffs have been announced -- David Jones, BHP/Billiton -- with some companies like Harvey Nomann waving frantically that they are indeed in big trouble.

How this stacks up isn't at all clear as all the stats aren't in, but it's clear that when Rudd was paying out for a Xmas spend up the signals were well and truly flashing despite the government rhetoric at the time. Now the hazard guess is of 250,000 job losses over the next year.

'The truth is 2009 will be one of the toughest years Australia's faced in decades as the global financial crisis wreaks havoc on Australian jobs,'' Rudd said in Sydney this week. ''Growth will slow, unemployment will rise. And given the deteriorating global outlook, we must acknowledge that conditions could get worse.'

Could?