The recession in the three months to September was even worse than previously thought, highlighting the threat of a sharp slowdown next year.
Gross domestic product shrank by 0.6% between the second and third quarters – hit by a particularly heavy fall in manufacturing output.
The official figures – which show the worst performance since the end of 1990 – are even grimmer than the Office for National Statistics’ earlier estimate that the economy had contracted by 0.5%.
The pound came under renewed pressure following the release of the revised numbers. It has already sunk to close to parity with the euro in the past week.
Economists and policymakers widely agree the UK is in recession. This is because after the flat growth in the second quarter, and sharp contraction in the third, economic data and surveys suggests the economy has continued to decline in the final three months of the year. The most common definition of a recession is two consecutive quarters of falling output.
Financial Times
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