Monthly gross domestic product data for December — when there were widespread strikes in the public sector, rail and postal services — showed a 0.5 per cent contraction, the Office for National Statistics said, larger than the 0.3 per cent forecast.
Even so, Friday’s (10 February) figures will offer some relief to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his finance minister Jeremy Hunt as they seek measures to spur a rebound in their upcoming annual budget on 15 March.
Output fell 0.2 per cent in the three months to the end of September — when many businesses shut briefly to mark Queen Elizabeth’s funeral — and another consecutive fall in output in the fourth quarter would have met Europe’s usual definition of recession.
Read more at Reuters.
