For First Time Since January, More Printers Expect Growth

Business confidence continues to rebound slowly. Specifically, 24.7% of the printers NAPL surveyed in May expect business conditions to improve during the second half of 2001, up from 23.3% in April and a record-low 21.0% in March. Moreover, just 20.1%—the lowest in six months—foresee decline, down from a record-high 25.8% in February. The margin is slim, but for the first time since January, more printers expect improvement versus decline.

Most Western printers (60.9%) still don't expect business to change much through year end. But 26.1% now believe it will improve, while just 13.0% believe business will decline.

Midwestern printers expecting improvement still outnumber those who foresee the opposite by a wide margin—24.2% to 14.5%.

In May, 22.5% of Southern printers anticipated improvement, slipping from 25.6% in April. The percentage expecting decline—27.5%—is down considerably from the 35.4% peak hit earlier this year.

Twenty-five percent of Eastern printers expect improvement—up from 17.6% in April—while 27.5% foresee decline, effectively unchanged from April.