“Avoiding a recession reveals our financial system is extra resilient than many feared”, mentioned Jeremy Hunt, who at pixel time is the UK chancellor, in response to a flatlined first estimate of fourth-quarter GDP.

Because the FT reviews:

Gross home product was unchanged between the third and fourth quarters of 2022, following a contraction within the earlier three months, in accordance with knowledge printed on Friday by the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics.

That was in keeping with analysts’ expectations however was weaker than the 0.1 per cent enlargement anticipated by the Financial institution of England. The flat studying means the UK prevented a technical recession, often outlined as two consecutive quarters of falling output.

However zero is a really spherical quantity; zero-point-zero doubly so. Is there a extra granular view?

A really affected person individual on the ONS press workplace defined to us that progress estimates are solely thought of correct to 1 decimal place. The extra precise however much less dependable GDP determine, to 2 decimal locations, is +0.01 per cent.

However given the zero has been rounded down from an unreliable estimate, it appears affordable so as to add an error bar to the fourth-quarter GDP studying:

When requested for an much more granular view, the very affected person ONS press individual directed us to the spreadsheet.

The bit we care about within the hyperlink above is “GDP at market costs, chained quantity measure” (dataset ABMI), which might be discovered on Desk A2. From there, we will see that the UK GDP (preliminary estimate) rose from £557.023bn within the third quarter to £557.099bn within the fourth, a rise of 0.0136 per cent. Woo!

Keep in mind additionally that right now’s This fall knowledge is just preliminary. Over the long term the common absolute reversion between first and ultimate UK GDP readings is plus or minus 0.4 proportion factors, although the ONS has been getting steadily extra correct. Within the later phases of the pandemic its common absolute revision is simply 0.175 proportion factors:

Utilizing probably the most precise progress determine and the latest revision common as an error bar, the UK nonetheless could be in recession. The vary (rounded to a statistically vital single decimal place) is between +0.2 per cent and -0.2 per cent.

We’ll get a clearer learn on technical recessions when the revised fourth-quarter GDP studying drops on the finish of March. That could be the extra acceptable second for victory laps from the chancellor, whoever they might be.