China's Commerce Minister Chen Deming
From BBC News site
The US economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.2% in the last three months of 2008 official figures show, a far sharper fall than previously reported.
Plunging exports and the biggest fall in consumer spending in 28 years dragged the annualised figure down from an earlier estimate of 3.8%.
That collapse in world trade is also hurting economies like China and India, which were not so long ago touted as the new engines of global growth.
In China, more than 10 million migrant workers have had to leave the main coastal cities, where much of China's growth has been concentrated in recent years, to go back to their homes in the countryside. They've lost their jobs because the rest of the world is buying fewer Chinese goods.
Unrest fears
The authorities fear this could lead to significant social unrest.
There have already been some limited protests about job layoffs.
China's Commerce Minister Chen Deming told the BBC's Business editor Robert Peston about his concerns about China's slowing growth. and what steps the government was taking to provide a better social security net for rural workers.
Listen Listen to China's Commerce Minister Chen Deming (1 min 53 secs)
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Indian growth slows
In India too, rising unemployment is a sensitive issue.
This time last year, India's economy was growing at an annual rate of about 9%. That sort of rate is essential, say experts, to create jobs for a nation of more than one billion people. Now, though, Indian growth has been cut to about 5%.
Economist Jayati Ghosh, of Nehru University in New Delhi, explained to World Business News's Mike Johnson why slowing growth is a problem for the Indian government.
Listen Listen to economist Jayati Ghosh (1 min 1 sec)
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First broadcast on World Business News on 27 February 2009
