ATA's Costello: 'The recession is over'
Fleet Owner
“The recession is likely over.”
Bob Costello, the American Trucking Associations’ (ATA) chief economist, delivered this promising, unofficial news to virtual attendants of the 2020 McLeod Software User Conference during a Sept. 30 presentation on the economy.
While the recession might be over, the U.S. economic landscape might forever be changed as the COVID-19 pandemic is reshaping consumer habits in a way that has benefited the trucking industry — unlike past recessions that hampered it.
The U.S. economy has seen two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth in 2020, which Costello said is the unofficial definition of a recession. The official declaration of recession is made by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a group of economists who decide when economic expansions or contractions officially began and end. A recession is based on four main indicators: industrial production, business sales, personal income, and nonfarm payrolls.