"Some positive signals have appeared in the last weeks, including the evolution of the financial markets, improvement in business expectations and some real indicators, such as export data in Asia,pointing, all of them, to a stabilization of the economy in the second part of this year and a gradual recovering in 2010,".

VOA: standard.2009.05.04

Other official data pointing to a recovery includes an acceleration in exports, retail sales and industrial production.

BBC: China manufacturing activity at three-month high

But this evidence of a tightening labour market is outweighed by data pointing in the opposite direction.

ECONOMIST: The economy

It's hard to reconcile the August job figures with the other data pointing to downturn and poor confidence in the UK economy.

BBC: Scottish unemployment drops again