It’s often said that printing companies are a bell weather for the economy. If that’s the case then what are the tea leaves telling us right now?
Well first of all, this has been a tough time for commercial printers. And the historical data does appear to match UK GDP with alarming accuracy. I am particularly struck by the sharp slowdown in the demand for print during the first three months of this year, followed by a tough period of trading during the second quarter.
Match these printing observations with the now reported GDP for those first two quarters of the year and you discover that there is indeed a very close correlation. Indeed year to date GDP is estimated to be down by 5.4% (much more severe than any other recession in living memory), and the detailed analysis shows that the first quarter saw a very large fall in GDP of 2.4%, whilst the second quarter was a less dramatic 0.8% shrinkage.
Reading the commercial printing tea leaves
Now back to those printing tea leaves and my feeling is that things are indeed picking up in this, the third quarter of the year. There’s finally signs of life with printers who have survived the recession reporting new levels of activity. I first noticed that print quote requests were sharply up about a month ago. There was quite a lag between that and work being ordered, but sure as night follows day, some of those printing quotes are now converting and there’s a sense of urgency which I haven’t seen for a long time.
So it does seem that the long, cold, recession might finally be lifting and those that have survived might at last have something to look forward to.
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Dan Jacobs is the Sales Director at PrintHouse Corporation and an acknowledged expert in all things printing related. Dan Jacobs can be reached on 020 8963 0123.
