It could be a K-shaped recovery in the labour markets too

IN EVERY recession, there is a lively debate among economists as to whether the eventual economic recovery will be "L-shaped", "V-shaped" or "U-shaped".

Depending on one's viewpoint and expectations, advocates of an L-shaped recovery could be deemed the pessimists. (Of course, they would maintain that they are realists.) Either way, advocates of this view believe that the economy in question will have a very hard time recovering. After a precipitous decline down the perpendicular line of the "L", they expect gross domestic product (GDP) growth to be flat - and stay at the bottom of the horizontal line of the "L" for quite a while.

In contrast, proponents of a V-shape might be deemed optimists. Their expectation is that what goes down fast will come up fast. The proponents of a "U-shape" are somewhere in the middle. They expect an extended period of little or no growth with a subsequent steep recovery.