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This morning brings an update on unemployment figures - expected to keep rising, and perhaps not to return to their pre-recession trough for around five years.

As that trough was achieved with a big boost to public sector employment, and as the political consensus is now shifting to a cut-back in the scale of state spending on services, that cycle may become further elongated.

But the prospect of a bounce back from the depths of recession is becoming clearer.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke talked on Tuesday of the recession being "very likely over", at least technically.

His caution is matched by Bank of England governor Mervyn King, who continued to warn of uncertainty and volatility (including, you'll note, of inflation rates).

Closer to home, this week's second survey of Scottish business sentiment shows signs of a return to growth.

It's not there yet, but the direction of travel is clear.

And contrary to consensus opinion only three or four months ago, it looks like that might be achieved by the end of this year.

Lloyds TSB, working with the Fraser of Allander Institute at Strathclyde University, has found manufacturing/production is still facing the worst of a crisis - even though it was led by the service sector.

Its quarterly business monitor, covering June to August, shows exports are on the way up again, after sharp falls, but the prospect of rising turnover for producers is heavily outweighed by those who are gloomy.

Significant shifts underlying those headline figures include an easing of concern about access to credit.

It's more expensive - no surprise there - but less of a worry.

And the service sector is showing a slight uptick in concern about the availability of skilled staff, which was a major concern through the boom years of a tight labour market.

That's a reminder of the importance of continuing to educate, train and retrain workers for the jobs of the future.

We are also hearing this morning about the latest trends in retail.

Looking back on a year of trading through recession, it is extraordinary how total spending growth has held up, and held up particularly well in Scotland.

It is also odd that the Scottish/British Retail Consortium has been so reluctant to celebrate that stability through tough times.

What may make them nervous, but is not shown up by the figures, is how much those sales figures have been held up by discounting, leaving holes in corporate balance sheets.

Drilling down into the retail trends, the consortium offers interesting indicators of the way we're spending money differently.

Big ticket items are continuing to struggle, but it is forward orders for fitted carpets that get marked out for special concerns.

After months of trading down from almost every level to cheaper options, food retailers have seen some signs of "trading up and treating". (For those not taking holidays overseas during summer, it was the least they could do for themselves.)

And after DIY stores struggled their way through the trough at the start of the year, they are now showing signs of benefiting from one consequence of the sluggish property market.

If people are not moving house (and the lack of property on the market is itself pushing up prices, according to chartered surveyors), then there comes a time when home-owners want to spruce up the one they've got.

Sure enough, the trends are towards "home improvement and refreshing, rather than moving".

Retail figures from the US on Tuesday also registered a reasonable state of health, having been in negative territory for much of the past year.

This was led by a rise in car sales, up by more than 10% on July - the biggest leap in eight years.

And that, of course, is explained by the 'Cash for Clunkers' scheme, similar to those operating in Europe.

It has now run out of federal dollars, so the uplift from that will head down again.

One impact of the scheme is that those who have bought new cars are typically stretching their finances, leaving it harder for non-car retailers to persuade them to commit to other big ticket items.

Yet as with all such government schemes, once the subsidy is in place, there's a lobby quickly created to ensure it stays there.

Stand by for similar lobbying when the VAT rate on the British high street rises by one sixth, or 2.5 percentage points, to where it was before last November.