The boss of a big British bank was musing the other day on the contrast between this downturn and the last significant economic freeze in the early 1990s. The difference, he said, was in the quality of company management. In the previous downturn, for example, housebuilders dithered and delayed when confronted with empty show homes and falling house prices. This time, by contrast, he noted approvingly, they had acted with alacrity, dismissing legions of brickies, chippies and plasterers in less time that it takes to say “deceptively spacious”.

By moving quickly and anticipating the slowdown, they had mitigated its worst effects. Twenty-first-century managers in Britain, he argued, were less prone to sit back passively and hope for the best, and more active in wielding the hatchet early and ruthlessly. Of course, tight control of costs, while good for individual companies, may not be beneficial if replicated across the entire economy. It is when people start losing their jobs, or seeing their neighbours lose theirs, that they really start tightening their belts, so tipping a slowdown into something altogether worse.

But so far that eagerness to chop jobs in the building sector has not been apparent in other parts of the economy. Retailers, for example, have been howling about the chill winds blowing through the shopping centres, but they have not responded by laying off legions of workers.

The banking sector is going through its worst slump in 30 years, yet the horrendous losses in credit markets are having little or no impact on employment levels. Barclays revealed this week that it had been a net hirer of staff in the past six months. Even its investment banking arm, the division in the eye of the tornado, recruited 100 more bodies than it released.

Likewise, media companies - another sector that was early to be savaged in this slowdown — have been chary about cutting their cloth to suit their diminishing advertising revenues. There has been trimming here and there, but none of the mass redundancies that in difficult economic weather win brownie points with bruised shareholders.

The reluctance to dismiss also shows through in the official unemployment figures. True, jobless levels have been rising for several months and registered the biggest increase — up 15,500 in June — since the recession in 1992. But the rise so far has been modest. Since unemployment began ticking up at the start of this year, a net 45,000 people across the country have lost their jobs. Out of a nationwide workforce of more than 29 million, that is one in 644 — hardly a radical cull. Next week's official jobs data will be scrutinised thoroughly.

This generation of managers is said to be clinical, scientific and well schooled in not letting emotion get in the way of difficult decisions. Yet so far they have been cautious about handing out P45s. That will prove sagacious if this downturn is gentle and short-lived. The macho managers who cut early and deep in the shallow downturns of the past 15 years have often been proved wrong, souring staff morale and forcing rehiring at a penal cost in the ensuing upturns.

But with every passing day, this has the makings of a nastier slowdown. Yesterday's repossession figures were grim. Faced with flat or falling sales and rising input costs (notwithstanding the welcome plunge in the crude oil price in the past month), company bosses will be returning from their summer holidays under growing pressure to winkle out big savings. At most companies, these are to be located in the wages bill. Human resources directors are set for a busy, uncomfortable autumn.

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