No recession.

That is the message, again, from the Planning Institute of Jamaica, PIOJ.

Senior director of economic planning and research at the PIOJ, James Stewart, pointed to improved employment and quarter-on-quarter gross domestic product, or GDP, growth as key indicators that the Jamaican economy is healthy and recovering.

James Stewart, senior director of economic planning and research at the PIOJ.

A technical recession is strictly defined as two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. However, this terminology is often debated as an inaccurate economic indicator.

A real or official recession requires a much broader, deep decline across the entire economy, including spikes in unemployment, crashing personal incomes, and dropping retail sales.

According to PIOJ’s director general, Dr. Wayne Henry, those concerns simply have not materialised.

Dr. Wayne Henry, director general of the PIOJ.

Based on the latest data, the PIOJ has similarly positively revised the country’s economic recovery timeline from three years to a maximum of two.