Last week, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Indranee Rajah told the media that Singapore hasn’t slid into recession yet.

However, bad news keeps pouring in: Our manufacturing and exports contract sharply in August. Factory outlook from PMI falls to 3-year low in September. 2019 GDP growth is revised further down to between zero and 1 percent.

A technical recession (two consecutive quarters of fall in GDP) can be avoided if we do some adjustment on the GDP of this quarter or the previous quarter. Other industries are doing fine if we are not looking at manufacturing and retail that are in deep water. The labour market looks fine when we are not counting underemployed residents and retrenched non-residents leaving Singapore.

Are we already in recession?

All governments are doing what they can to avoid their country falling into recession: Thailand approved a $10 billion stimulus package to boost economy. Hong