Now is not the time to do anything more to slow the economy – it’s already in danger of stalling

‘Personally, I don’t care much about GDP growth because in my view the only thing that matters with recessions is jobs.’ Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

When the February unemployment figures are released on Thursday at 11.30am, there is a decent chance that, according to one measure, Australia will be in recession. But while it might not feel like the recessions of the 1980s or 1990s, it should serve as a warning to both the Reserve Bank and the government that the economy is extremely weak and does not need any more rate rises.

Whenever we have awful GDP growth like we saw in December, talk always turns to recessions, because of the old definition that a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.