Global slowdown, domestic trauma?

Economic growth across the world is slowing down. Vibrant economies have taken a beating. Japan was the first, the USA has now followed suit with massive job cuts announcing a near-recessionary trend. These developments in far-flung lands have already started impacting India, as IT-related jobs in the Silicon Valley have bottomed out. About 50,000 of our ‘boys’ will be heading home before July is out. Domestically, it spells bad news for exporters whether in Ludhiana or Hyderabad. A sharp fall in global offtake from the Indian market is expected and businesses and professionals need to brace themselves for a possible future shock, says Ashwini Bhatnagar.

THE verdict was out on May 5. Without much drama, The New York Times reported blandly and simply that the American job creation machine had gone into reverse in April as the work force fell by an estimated 223,000 jobs "on top of a loss of 53,000 jobs the previous month.....The unemployment rate, which has been inching up from a low of 3.9 per cent in October, rose again to 4.5 per cent from 4.3 per cent in March. After several years of expanding opportunity and rising income for millions of households, the back- to- back months of big job losses indicated to some analysts that the already sluggish economy had become even weaker lately and might be nearing, or even in, a recession."

DREAM THEME: Dreaming of trains
by Vinaya Katoch Manhas