Commenting on yesterdays GDP figures, Ian Brinkley, director of socio-economic programmes at The Work Foundation, said: "Underlying economic growth is flat - the gain in output in the first quarter of 2011 exactly balances the loss of output due to bad weather in the last quarter of 2010. This will affect job creation over the next few months, making any hope of an early reduction in unemployment remote.
"The good news is that manufacturing is doing well, and knowledge intensive high value business services and telecommunications showed signs of renewed growth - and these are the key sectors that will have to drive this recovery.
"The bad news is that construction is in freefall, traditional services such as retailing are very weak, and the economic impact of cuts in public services is still to come. We will need to see the manufacturing boom sustained and much stronger growth in private services if the economy as a whole is to escape the trap of a long period of below average growth."
