Southeast Michigan Purchasing Managers Index climbs 1.7 points in January
The Southeast Michigan Purchasing Managers Index climbed 1.7 points in January to 52.3, thanks to a rebound in production and new orders, which had hit seasonal, year-end lows in December. Anything above 50 indicates economic growth. "As the new year gets underway, our economy is picking up momentum," Nitin Paranjpe, a global supply chain management adjunct faculty member at Wayne State University’s School of Business Administration, said in a news release. The index is a research partnership between the business school and the Institute for Supply Management-Southeast Michigan. A subset of the index, the commodity price index, rose from 52.3 to 56.7 in January. Prices were up for plastic, polystyrene, wire rod, aluminum and brass items. Eighty-four percent of respondents said they expect the economy to remain the same or improve over the next six months, while fewer than 17 percent said they believe the economy will become less stable.
