Lower, but less pessimistic. That's the latest word on the greater Grand Rapids economy, according to the data collected in the last two weeks of March. New orders, our closely watched index of business improvement, moderated to -5, up from -20. Although the index is still in negative territory, it looks far better than the -57 that we reported in December. In a similar move, the production index remained negative but moderated to -7, up from last month's -31. Activity in the purchasing offices, our index of purchases, only moved to -42 from -44. The index of employment came in at -27, not nearly as pessimistic as last month's record low of -48. All in all, our statistics are still negative, but the sharp rate of decline has subsided substantially. Although the worst may be over, the road to recovery may still be very long. |