Undoubtedly, employment concerns remain, but the quickening of output growth that began in the second half of last year should lead to  BIS Review 34/1997  -3-  sustained growth in private sector employment over the course of 1997, and to improved consumer confidence. You can see that I did not find the arguments against a strong comeback in consumer spending persuasive.
Moreover, these negative influences must be weighed against the size of the easing in interest rates that has taken place since late 1995. Short-term rates are down by about 3 percentage points, medium-term rates by 2 percentage points and longer-term rates by 1½ percentage points. Another indicator of the extent of easing in monetary conditions is the growth of the narrowly-defined monetary aggregate, M1.