Will the UK economy bounce back in 2024?

Fears of recession follow warning that the West is 'sleepwalking into economic catastrophe'

Jeremy Hunt falling and missing a trampoline
Jeremy Hunt insisted that 2024 was 'when we need to throw off our pessimism and declinism about the UK economy'
(Image credit: Illustrated / Getty Images)

Fears the UK is heading for a recession are growing as the economy unexpectedly shrank slightly in the third quarter, with gross domestic product falling by 0.1%.

The "tepid numbers" from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for the three months to September represent a "downward revision" from the earlier estimate of a 0.2% increase, and highlight the economy's struggle to "shake off low-growth performance", said the Financial Times.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.