Special Report: Recession 2008

More and more we are told that the UK is heading towards a recession. This page attempts to bring you all the information you need with regards to a UK recession.

What is a recession?

A recession is a  period of an economic contraction, sometimes limited in scope or duration. The economy will fall into a recession when it experiences 'negative growth in two successive quarters.

When will we know if the UK is in recession?

According to the BBC: "One of the problems about officially declaring a recession is that one can only confirm it after it has happened.

Official GDP figures are published about every three months by the Office for National Statistics and sometimes its initial estimates have to be revised later when new information emerges.

For instance, were the UK to go into a mild recession in the last six months of 2008, as some experts are now forecasting, this would not be confirmed until early next year.

As for the fear of a full-blown recession, we will only really know about whether this has come to pass next year or even 2010."

See our redundancy tracker

Computer Weekly useful articles:

• The big picture of how recession will affect IT industry
• IT job market in recession
• Podcast: Gartner - Steve Prentice on IT in the economic downturn
• Strategy clinic: How do I emphasise the importance of IT during a downturn?
• Software quality suffers during economic downturn
• Technology in tough times: preparing for economic downturn
• IT outsourcing in a global economic downturn
• Economic downturn may lead to more software piracy