It is too early to say whether the US has emerged from a recession that began in March 2001, a panel charged with dating US recessions said in its January report.
'According to the most recent data, the US economy continues to experience growth in output but declines in employment,' the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) panel said.
'Recent data confirm our earlier conclusion that additional time is needed to be confident about the interpretation of the movements of the economy last year and this year,' it said.
The US economy slipped into a recession in March 2001, marking the end of a record decade-long expansion, said the NBER's six-member business cycle dating committee. It is not yet clear whether a further economic contraction would be deemed part of the same recession, it said in a report.
Many economists define a recession as two consecutive quarters of shrinking gross domestic product. By that measure, the US economy plunged into a recession the first half of 2001 and emerged in the last quarter of 2001, posting growth in each quarter since then.
Preliminary figures to be released January 30 are expected to show further growth in the fourth quarter of 2002.
But the NBER panel has a broader measure - it says a recession is a significant decline in activity spread across the economy that lasts more than a few months. It dates a recession as being the time between a peak in economic activity and a trough.
'The trough date will mark the end of the recession,' the NBER report said. But it added that it usually waits many months to judge when the economy has hit a trough because of possible revisions to the numbers and the risk that a contraction might resume.
If the US economy were to weaken again, the NBER said it would have to decide whether it amounted to a recession, and whether it was a continuation of the same recession that began in March 2001.
The NBER relies heavily on employment numbers when judging business cycles. US firms unexpectedly cut 101,000 jobs in December, when the unemployment rate stood at 6%.
The Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book survey last night said the economy remained subdued with weak consumer spending, a marginal uptick in manufacturing and flat jobs growth.
