Countries in economic recession or depression

Many countries experienced recession in 2008.[128] The countries/territories currently in a technical recession are Estonia, Latvia, Ireland, New Zealand, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Italy, Russia and Germany.
Denmark went into recession in the first quarter of 2008, but came out again in the second quarter.[129] Iceland fell into an economic depression in 2008 following the collapse of its banking system.
The following countries went into recession in the second quarter of 2008: Estonia,[130] Latvia,[131] Ireland[132] and New Zealand.

The following countries/territories went into recession in the third quarter of 2008: Japan,[134] Sweden,[135] Hong Kong,[136] Singapore,[137] Italy,[138] Turkey [128] and Germany.[139] As a whole the fifteen nations in the European Union that use the euro went into recession in the third quarter.[140] In addition, the European Union, the G7, and the OECD all experienced negative growth in the third quarter.

The following countries/territories went into technical recession in the fourth quarter of 2008: United States, United Kingdom, Spain,[141] and Taiwan.

Of the seven largest economies in the world by GDP, only China and France avoided a recession in 2008. France experienced a 0.3% contraction in Q2 and 0.1% growth in Q3 of 2008. In the year to the third quarter of 2008 China grew by 9%. This is interesting as China has until recently considered 8% GDP growth to be required simply to create enough jobs for rural people moving to urban centres.[143] This figure may more accurately be considered to be 5-7% now that the main growth in working population is receding. Growth of between 5%-8% could well have the type of effect in China that a recession has elsewhere. Japan went into technical depression in the fourth quarter of 2008 with a nominal annualized GDP growth of -12.7%.[144] Ukraine went into technical depression in January 2009 with a nominal annualized GDP growth of -20%.