This is the season of funny debates. There is talk among observers and politicians that Guyana is either in recession or about to enter into one. Recession is a precisely defined term that requires data to verify. A recession is defined as two successive quarters of negative GDP growth, thereby requiring quarterly GDP data to verify. We would also need to extract the cyclical aspect of the unemployment rate to observe whether it coincides with the negative GDP growth. This requires labour market statistics on a quarterly basis as several other sister CARICOM countries have.
These quarterly macroeconomic statistics are not published in Guyana. The rate of unemployment is a mystery. Unemployment has a cyclical component; therefore, relying on a decennial population census is not the way to measure present trends in unemployment and the labour market as a whole. These surveys have to be done each quarter so policy makers can figure out the short-term swings in employment. This is the only way we can say