As reported yesterday, the Australian economy has plunged into its first official recession in 30 years following declines in GDP of 0.3% and 7.0% respectively over the March and June quarters:
In order to put this economic contraction into perspective, below is a chart comparing Australia’s current recession to the recessions of the mid-1970s, early-1980s and early-1990s:
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As you can see, the current COVID-19 induced recession dwarfs the three prior episodes, with the cumulative 7.2% downturn already roughly twice as severe as the 1980s recession (-3.7%) and roughly three to four times more severe than the 1970s (-2.0%) and 1990s (-1.4%) recessions.
