But before getting carried away, we should concede: •  By the standards of earlier world recessions, last year’s was a mild and short one, and some observers may be reluctant to classify it as a fully-fledged recession. BIS Review 35/2002  1  •  We did not escape scot-free.
If you average our growth in 2000 and 2001, it comes out at 3 per cent so we did experience a modest slowing. As well as good GDP growth, we have experienced quite good employment growth over the past year.