Brian G. Long

Stronger. That’s the latest word on the West Michigan economy, according to data collected in the last two weeks of April. Read More

Inching up a little more. Read More

Nicely up. That’s the latest word on the West Michigan economy, according to the data collected in the last two weeks of February. Read More

We’re dead flat. That’s the latest word on the West Michigan economy, according to data collected in the last two weeks of January. Read More

We’ve returned to an unimpressive growth pattern. Despite the optimism of our November report, December and 2012 ended rather flat. Read More

Better! After five lackluster reports, the data collected in November depict a return to modest growth in the Greater Grand Rapids area. Read More

Very modestly up. Our local economy has been flat for the last three reports, so even a modest uptick is good news. According to the data collected in the month ending Oct. 31, New Orders, our index of business improvement, edged up to +6 from -2. Read More

Flat. In last month’s report, we reported the industrial economy in the Greater Grand Rapids area had slid into the minus column. Fortunately, this month turned out a little better. According to the data collected in the month ending Aug. 31, New Orders, our closely watched index of business improvement, returned to 0 from -6. The Production index flipped back to positive at +5, up from -5. Much as expected, the Employment index remained unchanged at +18. Activity in the purchasing offices remained in single digits, but rose to +8, up from +4. In short, a slowdown is upon us, and it remains to be seen exactly how slow. Read More

Slightly negative. For the first time since the local recovery began in April 2009, the industrial economy in the Greater Grand Rapids area has dipped into the minus column. According to the data collected in the month ending July 31, New Orders, our index of business improvement, came in at -6, down from last month’s +9. The Production index also flipped negative to -5, down from +6. Because of its laggard nature, the Employment index remained positive at +18, but was not as robust as the +25 in the month of June. Activity in the purchasing offices, our index of Purchases, remained barely positive at +4 and a little softer than +11 in our last report.

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Still growing, but slowing. That’s how the industrial economy looks in the Greater Grand Rapids area, according to data collected in the month ending June 30. Our index of business improvement, which we call New Orders, remained positive at +9, but was lower than last month’s +20. The Production index remained virtually unchanged at +6, up from +5. Because of seasonal hiring, the Employment index rose to +25, up from +12. In June, 32 percent of the respondents reported staff additions. Activity in the purchasing offices remained unchanged at +11.

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