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Base from official figures, Britain is finally "on track" to recover from the economic crisis with employment back at the same level as in 2008. The economy grew by 0.6 per cent between April and June despite earlier speculation that there may have been a renewed recession. This has been followed by another rise earlier in the year. There are optimistic signs of growth with employment and the number of hours worked returning to pre-crisis levels, ending a five-year slump. But, in totality the size of the economy is still way smaller than previous to the crisis and politicians were last night eager to stress that Britain still faces years of austerity and improbability before it will have fully recovered. George Osborne, the Chancellor, said that the country was "on the mend" as he prepared to make improving the economy his key message at the next general election. "The figures are better than forecast," Mr Osborne said. "Britain is holding its nerve. We are sticking to our economic plan. "Britain is on the mend, but we've got to stick with the plan because there's still a long way to go." David Cameron, who went on his annual summer holiday, added: "We are on the right track - building an economy for hard-working people." Nonetheless, senior politicians also gave warning to people "not to get carried away"and stressed that ministers were not complacent. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, said that he would not be prepared to declare that the economy had recovered before there had been another "two or three years" of strong growth. Neil Bentley, the deputy director-general of the CBI, said that the figures confirmed that Britain was on the road to recovery although there were likely to be "a few bumps ahead". "Underlying conditions are quite weak as consumers are still saddled with debt and despite the global economy picking up, the potential for getting knocked off course remains," he said. According to the O

Australian businesses predicts 2014 to be a good year for growth, expecting that sales, profits, investment and employment will increase to their highest level in 12 months. Dun and Bradstreet's latest Business Expectations Survey shows capital investment and employment intentions have rebounded from negative territory in the previous quarter to sit above their 10-year average levels. Dun and Bradstreet's economics adviser, Stephen Koukoulas, says expectations for employment are particularly encouraging and should allay some people's concerns about job security. "While we're still not quite at the very strong levels for employment and hiring intentions just yet, it's clearly lifted over the last 9-12 months or so," he said. "And it's suggesting to us anyway that employment will start to lift to a more sustainable pace in the first half of 2014." The survey also explains a quarter of firms designed to raise the cost of their products and services throughout the first three months of this year 2014, a move that may prompt the Reserve Bank to lift interest rates. "It would require a global negative shock to cut rates again in our view," Mr Koukoulas said. "But more likely if the economy is stronger, if we do get a pick-up in selling prices showing up in higher inflation in the next quarter or two, then I think not only do we not have interest rate cuts coming through but the focus of the market will be more on when will the RBA start lifting interest rates and how aggressively will they do it." According to the survey, optimism among Australian businesses is also on the rise, with two-thirds of firms feeling more positive about growth prospects this year compared to last year. Employment objectives have recovered from an interpretation of -1.1 in the last quarter to 8.8 in the present quarter, the highest level in three years, at the same time as the outlook for capital spending was back from -0.4 to 7.2.