Good news has been so scarce in the economy recently that it’s worth stopping for it when it comes.
This morning, Friday the 13th of all days, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) announced that the economy had grown by 0.1% in November.
That’s not particularly strong gross domestic product growth, but it’s considerably better than economists expected: a contraction of 0.2%.
And it is significant for what it implies.
Unless the economy contracts by 0.4% in December, the UK could avoid falling into a technical recession.
This is no mean feat. We are facing one of the biggest price shocks on modern record.
Most economists, including the Bank of England and the Office for Budget Responsibility, assumed that the economy would shrink in the final quarter of the year and, since a recession is usually defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction, that would mean we had formally had a contraction. succumbed to the R word.
It is now quite plausible that Britain will avoid that fate, at least for now.
This final clause is important because, whether or not the UK is to blame for this somewhat arbitrary economic phenomenon, its economy is still not growing.
Read more Bank of England bond market intervention makes £3.8bn profit What good Christmas retail sales tell us about the economy
Households are still under pressure and the pressure should continue for some time. Much of the additional growth in November was courtesy of spending on pubs and hospitality during the World Cup.
Still, along with other positive news — that wholesale gas prices are falling and that profits at many leading consumer-facing companies are holding up — these economic data may be the start of a more positive story. for the UK economy.
The question now is how long this positivity lasts.