Commercial Printing Outlook — Tepid Vote of Confidence

PIA/GATF’s Davis further cautions that, in a downturn, the printing industry sector declines faster than the economy as a whole and is slower to recover. “The next downturn will come, and we’re going to go down hard and take a long time to recover,” he warns.

Seven Year Itch

In this more competitive age of printing, capital investments should always be based on a clear marketing plan and be made with an eye toward cutting costs and improving efficiency, rather than adding capacity, the PIA/GATF economist advises. Printers should be even more cautious in their investment decision-making with the economy entering its seventh year of growth, he adds. “The longer you go in a cycle, the greater the risk becomes of something happening.”