"The recession definition actually includes much more than job changes. It's really based on overall production of both products and services in our economy. And the standard definition of a recession is that that production number must fall for six months in a row for us to be in an official recession," explains Dr. Walden, a professor of agricultural and resource economics. "And unfortunately we will not know if that has happened until perhaps several months down the road.

"But right now most economists do not think that overall national production is going down. It appears that the economy has slowed down clearly, but we don't think the economy is actually shrinking even though ... we have seen some modest decline in jobs over one month," he adds. "So we need to keep obviously an eye on this. Economists right now are split; still the majority do not think that in coming months we will go into a recession.

"And if we are lucky," he says, "what we will have is a period of rather slow growth and then the economy will pick back up."