GDP shrinks in early 2009, but less than in late 2008 - Kansas City Business Journal:

http://my-tuts.com/page/A-Professional-Resume-for-the-Construction-Industr.html
percent in the first quarter of 2009, the said Friday. The drop was less than the 6.3 percent decrease in the final quarterof 2008. It also was less severre than the 6.1 percent decline that the Commerce Department’a forecast a month ago, based on partia data. GDP measures total goods and service s produced inthe “The decrease in real GDP in the firsft quarter primarily reflected negativee contributions from exports, equipmenft and software, private inventory investment, nonresidential structurew and residential fixed investment that were partly offset by a positives contribution from personal-consumption expenditures,” BEA said in a statement “Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, Personal-consumption spending rose 1.
5 percent in the quarter, compared with a 4.3 percen drop in the previous quarter. BEA cited that in explaining whythe nation’s GDP declined less in the firsty quarter than in the fourth It also cited a larger decreased in imports. The fourth-quarter GDP was the nation’as largest since the mid-1980s. .