There is a rumour growing in popularity that the worst is behind us and the recession may have bottomed out. It is a bit like the feeling you get on a plane when you have been though turbulence and there is a collective sigh of relief when they start to serve the coffee again. You are never really comfortable, however, until you land and the wheels stop spinning. So are we looking at another false dawn or is there some foundation to this cautious optimism? The problem with this part of the boom-bust-recovery cycle is that the data coming from different parts of our industry is confusing at worse and contradictory at best. It doesn't seem possible to work from hard numbers that have any consistency and so you tend to be buffeted by anecdotal evidence which then gives you a distorted view. For instance, Atkins is said to be losing over 1,000 of its workforce, which is a huge number but these global engineers still have more than 17,500 people working around the world. Its recent trading statement describes the UK as "challenging" but the Middle East as giving grounds for optimism.
展开▼
