U.S. recession to end in second half of 2009: Survey

2009-04-10 20:37:28  

    BEIJING, April 10 (Xinhuanet)--

The U.S. recession will be over in September, but not the unemployment, which may continue to rise until the second half of 2010, says a survey released Friday.

    The Blue Chip Economic Indicators survey of private economists predicts a 5 percent and 1.8 percent contraction in U.S. gross domestic product for the first two quarters of the year respectively. The third quarter of 2009 brings a more hopeful prediction of 0.4 percent growth.

    The survey, conducted April 3-6, revealed a "long road ahead" attitude from the economists.

    It showed much of the anticipated turnaround in the economy, now in its 16th month of recession, would be driven by some improvement in consumer spending, housing, business inventories and exports. Yet, above-trend growth was not expected until the second half of 2010.

    "The end of the decline isn't the beginning of the recovery," said David Resler of Nomura Securities. "It's like a boxing match. Even if you win the fight, it's not going to feel as good when you get out of the ring as when you went in."

    Indeed, economists' prospects for the labour market remain bleak and just 12 percent expect the unemployment rate to fall some time this year.

    More than a third of respondents expect the jobless rate to peak in the first half of 2010, while about half did not see unemployment declining until the second half of next year.

    By December of this year, the economists on average expect the unemployment rate to reach 9.5 percent, up from the 8.5 percent reported for March. They see the rate of decline slowing, forecasting 2.6 million job losses in the next 12 months compared with the 4.8 million jobs shed in the previous period.

    (Agencies)

Editor: Huma Sheikh