In their view, the data only suggest that the contraction will not be as sharp as feared.
9.40am BST Spanish recession to continue Looking back at Spain's ongoing recession (see 8.02am onwards), and economists fear that the contraction will be repeated through the year.
The provisional figures show that the contraction was a result of lower consumer spending, companies running down inventory and decreased exports, INSEE said.
Still, he said, "declining payrolls for the first two months of this quarter and initial jobless claims provide no evidence that the contraction in the economy is slowing".
Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo, said that hopes that the contraction in world trade would stabilize later this year were undermined last week.
It should also be evident from Figure 1 that the contraction curve of a glass is significantly different from its expansion curve.
Ms. Russo said that the jobs were tied to the company's volume of business, and that the contraction of employees was an attempt to fit the size of a shrinking market.
A Major League Baseball official said today that the contraction settlement talks between the owners and the players' union would continue on Wednesday, the third straight day negotiators will meet.
The clerk of Hebden Royd council, Jason Boom, said that the contraction of local papers, with the neighbouring Todmorden News also moving its journalists to Halifax, could only be bad news.
It expects a 0.1% drop in UK GDP in the current quarter, and its head, Robert Chote, reckons there's a clear risk that the contraction will continue into the first three months of 2013.
South Africa's GDP grew by an annualised 1.4% in the third quarter, and readjusted data showed that the contraction in the first three months of the year was worse than had been thought.
