The worst of the recession is over, but IT departments can
expect further
budget cuts by business until next year, according to the
Confederation of British Industry's latest economic
forecast.
The UK recession deepened more than expected in the first three
months of this year, but this should prove to have been the worst
of the quarterly falls in GDP, the Confederation of British
Industry (CBI) forecast said.
"The recession is expected to moderate in the second half of
2009, but the recovery will be slow and fragile," the report
said.
The CBI expects slow GDP growth to resume only in the spring of
2010, although business investment plans will shrink by 9.3% over
2009 and a further 3.4% in 2010.
This means long-term IT projects are likely to remain on hold
and overall budgets are more likely to stay the same or
decrease.
"The UK economy remains deeply troubled, and the first quarter
of this year has been tougher than expected," said
Richard Lambert, CBI director general.
He said although it was difficult to build a clear picture of
how the economy will perform, there were a few tentative signs that
the steepest phase of the recession was now behind us.
The CBI predicts the economy will have shrunk by a total of 5.1%
by the end of this recession, which is not as severe as the
cumulative 5.9% seen in the early 1980s recession.