UK on the verge of a recession

Covering responses from almost 5,000 large and small businesses, amongst the survey findings are historic lows in some of the manufacturing and services indices. Strikingly, the UK domestic balances for home sales and orders recorded negative growth in the last three months in both sectors. A recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth and, if the trends indicated by the survey persist, the UK will be in recession. The survey also revealed sharply declining confidence and negative cash flow, with the impact of the credit crunch and rising costs hitting business...