What is an economic downturn?

Answer 1

there are 4 stages in an economic cycle; boom, recession, slump and recovery. All economies go through these - the UK is currently booming. An economic downturn is when you start to leave boom and start moving down the cycle to a recession.

Answer 2

It all reminds me of double speak. Words chosen carefully to fool or not upset the general public. Economic downturn use to be called a depression, then they called it a recession.

One standard definition is 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth (where "negative growth" can't be all that bad can it, with "growth" involved.)

The right idea is if you look at a graph, and positive economic indicators have been upward sloping lines, an economic downturn, would be where these upward curves turn, flatten out, and start to turn down . A warning sign, as the next step could be a big huge crash of those lines straight down.