How are you coping?

Black Friday provided some surprising and much needed good news for the U.S. economy—retail sales went up! According to a Dec. 1 Washington Post article, Black Friday sales grew 3 percent to $10.6 billion, and online shopping sales for the long Thanksgiving weekend reached $41 million, or about $372.57 per person, up 7.2 percent from the same period last year.

Despite the weekend’s good news, economists forecast tough overall market conditions for 2009. According to a Nov. 4 forecast from CNN economists, the recession will continue through the first three months of 2009; the overall economy will shrink about 0.1 percent in the first quarter and then begin to rebound slightly; and unemployment could climb to 7 percent or 8 percent by the end of the year.

How is your company coping with the tough economic environment? Has business slowed? What are you doing to stay on top?

Respond—anonymously, if you prefer—in the comment section of this blog, or e-mail me at kdevlin@glass.org, or Jenni Chase at jchase@glass.org.

—Katy Devlin, commercial glass & metals editor, retail glass co-editor, Glass Magazine