SORRY FOLKS – IT’S GOOD NEWS THIS TIME!
I hate to disappoint all those gloomy individuals who like
to wallow in bad news, but all the economic indicators are now on the up, and I
believe we’re seeing the first real green shoots of recovery in several years.
Certainly many business friends and colleagues are telling
me that enquiries and order pipelines are increasing and companies are focusing
on what they’ll be doing when – not if – the economy picks up.
One clear sign is the construction sector, that’s been depressed
for so long. This week U.S. builders put
in more applications for building permits than we’ve seen since August
2008. The figures from June show the
fastest pace in construction of single-family homes since October 2008.
U.S. applications for unemployment benefit have trended
lower in the past two months, indicating that companies are laying off fewer
workers and hiring more.
In Europe, despite the ongoing crisis in the Eurozone (a big
trading region for Britain and America), the UK economy is also improving. The latest stats on UK retail sales figures
show a monthly increase of 0.3 per cent for July 2012. Although this doesn’t seem a lot compared to
boom times, it’s far higher than the 0.1 per cent that the analysts
predicted.
Just as exciting, 2,000 jobs have been created every day in
the UK right through spring and the number of people in work rose by more than
200,000 between April and June. This has pushed total employment up to a four-year
high of 29.48 million, close to the pre-crisis peak of 29.57 million in May
2008.
This hasn’t, of course, stopped the so-called financial
experts cranking up their doom machines and they’re now questioning the
‘economic puzzle’ of rising employment during a recession. Personally I think the only economic puzzle
is why we have economists at all!
The British cartoonist Matt encapsulated it this week in a
cartoon that said: “London is fully of happy, smiling people. I feel like a stranger in my own city.”
Have a happy weekend.
Larry
