Still searching for a bottom. That's the latest word on the greater Grand Rapids economy, according to the data collected in the last two weeks of May. Regrettably, this is the first recent month that the local economy did not track with the ISM national statistics. New orders, our index of business improvement, remained positive at +5, up from +2. Although this modest improvement is good news, the rest of our statistics worsened. The production index retreated to -21 from -2. Activity in the purchasing offices, our index of purchases, backtracked to -32 from -21. The index of employment dropped sharply to -37 from -14. |