Economics
Green Shoots Emerge in World Economy as Virus Lockdowns Ease
- Activity, confidence numbers suggest recession has troughed
- Unemployment, debt, lack of vaccine will slow any recovery
Photographer: Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images
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Slowly but not surely, the world economy is emerging from its coronavirus-enforced hibernation.
As governments ease lockdowns of businesses and allow consumers to travel and shop again, measures of high-frequency data and confidence increasingly suggest a bottom has been reached in the worst global recession since the Great Depression.
A new set of daily activity gauges from Bloomberg Economics finds almost all of the economies it monitors witnessed a pick-up in activity since late March and early April, although no country is yet approaching its pre-virus levels. Germany, Japan and France are among those rebounding the fastest, while Spain and the U.K. remain relatively weak.