“So what’s the word of the year? Slow.”
Keynote speaker Dr. Paul Isely is the Associate Dean and Professor of Economics in the Seidman College of Business at Grand Valley State University.
While the area’s economy gets off to a slow start, his 2026 economic forecast anticipates summertime momentum.
“Interest rates are going to go down but not until the second half of the year.”
The economy grew just over 2% last year. Isely notes, without AI investments, the U.S, would likely be in a recession.
He stresses the impact of AI on West Michigan’s manufacturing sector citing area employers are reducing labor amid an ongoing workforce shortage.
“Manufacturing over the last two years in Grand Rapids is down 5,000 jobs. Michigan is down 27,000 manufacturing jobs.”
Isely expects AI will continue to slow employment across the region.
“We expect over the next year we’ll see that in healthcare more, in finance more and insurance more and a lot of that will hit around the third quarter, depending how long it will take to train AI agents.”
Isely anticipates margin pressure will persist with tariff and government regulation uncertainty, though he expects interest rate cuts in the second half to boost refinancing and spending.
“We have some good markers that help is coming in the second half of the year and as long as we don’t mess it up, that will be good news.”
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