Holiday Cheer

Well, here it is -- my 20^th (and final) post for 2008.

Thanks to everyone for your ongoing interest in my research and publications. I'll be back in 2009 with more fun stuff. In the meantime, here's a bit of multi-denominational holiday humor to brighten these bad economic times.

All Spinal Tap fans will surely enjoy Christmas with the Devil by Nigel and the gang! (Click below for a link to the video -- the song starts at the halfway point after a brief interview with the boys.) There’s someone up the chimney hole, and Satan is his name!

And for those of us celebrating the more minor festival of lights, can I interest you in Hanukkah? (my new favorite holiday song)

Happy New Year!!

A few words about the NAW Executive Summit

I hope that you are planning to attend the 2009 NAW Executive Summit in January. I know that the economy is tough and many executives are cutting back on travel, but this is one meeting that I believe will pay for itself. I strongly recommend that you attend.

NAW’s meetings are unique because they bring together executives from all sectors of the wholesale distribution industry. Speaking from personal experience, I know that the various sectors have many more similarities than differences. So, it’s a great place to network and get ideas from peers at non-competing wholesaler-distributors. Check out the comments from recent attendees.

I’m also looking forward to hearing about the economic outlook from Alan Beaulieu of the Institute for Trend Research. Alan is a sophisticated economist with a down-to-earth manner. I’ll be curious to see how his forecast compares to my 2009 Economic Forecast webcast from November.

After last year’s meeting, I wrote about last year’s Executive Summit in Strategies for Surviving a Slowdown, which has turned out to be one of my most widely read and linked to posts on the Distribution Trends blog.

If you read this blog and run into me at the meeting, please let me know what you think about Distribution Trends. I’ll also welcome any ideas for 2009’s top post.

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No, the picture above does not depict Washington DC weather in January. It's actually the summit of Mt. Everest.

Happy First Birthday, Economic Recession!

Breaking news from 12 months ago – the U.S. recession officially began in December 2007.

The Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) released a statement on Monday stating a Determination of the December 2007 Peak in Economic Activity.

By way of background, this committee is responsible for determining the start and end of a recession, which they define as “a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in production, employment, real income, and other indicators.”

The committee focused on payroll employment as a key indicator – consistent with the data shown in slide 5 of my 2009 Economic Forecast webcast in November:

As you can see in the chart, total non-farm employment has dropped by 1.2 million jobs since peaking in December 2007. Employment in the wholesale distribution industry is declining at a slightly faster rate than the overall economy, although regular readers will recognize that some wholesale distribution sectors have been expanding in 2008.

Job losses are widespread across most industry groups according to the most recent data (from October). Many core customer groups for wholesaler-distributors are cutting jobs:

• Manufacturing employment declined by 90,000 jobs in October and is down by almost 500,000 jobs in 2008 through October.
• Construction employment declined by 49,000 jobs in October, with job losses concentrated in residential construction. Since peaking in September 2006, employment in the construction industry has fallen by 663,000.

The overall U.S. unemployment rate rose to an unexpectedly high 6.5% in October – the highest rate in 15 years. The unemployment rate is forecast to hit 7.5% by the middle of 2009 according to the Wall Street Journal’s most recent survey of economists.

For more details on the economic situation and updated wholesale distribution data, order my 2009 Economic Forecast for Wholesale Distribution 30-page report and listen to the 90 minute audio recording of the November 13 event.

So, any ideas on what to get a recession for its first birthday?