Next week’s March quarter GDP figures will once again put the spotlight on the weakness of the economy. But questions about a recession are already with us, and the answer is rather complex.

Australia’s economy grew just 0.1% in the last quarter of 2023. That is, to be blunt, not a lot. Given that each quarter the growth figures are revised slightly, there is a small worry that next week we could find the December quarter revised to go backwards. If the March quarter then fell, that would mean hello recession! Population: us!

The good news is that this is unlikely. The quarterly growth figures do change, but usually they go up, not down:

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So that’s the good news: unless something out of the ordinary occurs, we are not likely to get a shock recession announcement next week.

But is a recession coming?

Last week, Deloitte dropped a large cat among the pigeons when it suggested that the lack of hiring among companies was consistent with a rise in unemployment that would put us into recession territory.

Now none of this is surprising.

In July I reported how businesses were much less likely to hire than they were six and twelve months ago, and back in March I noted how the rise in unemployment was putting us closer to recession territory.

All the talk in the past........

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