The official economic figures from the Office for National Statistics for the first quarter of 2013 are in and they were exactly as expected when estimated last month – a growth of 0.3%. This has meant that the UK has avoided the dreaded triple-dip recession that we all feared.
But we are not exactly out of the woods yet. On Wednesday the IMF (International Monetary Fund) criticised the consistently weak growth since the 2008 recession and urged that the government do more to stimulate growth while still continuing with austerity.
They also said that GDP had been weakened by the slow growth and that slow wage growth was hurting people’s ability to spend.
The ONS say the services sector is the main driver for growth but that the construction sector continues to struggle.
