National industrial and safety distributors in their latest earnings reports all strike the same chord: North American sales of safety products and over industrial supplies continue to confront strong headwinds. Organic sales for many distributors in 2016 are either minimally up by a percentage point or two, flat, or down by upwards of 5-7 percent.

It’s now been eight years since the Great Recession of 2007 and 2008 ended, and in terms of average annual growth, the pace of this so-called expansion has been by far the weakest of any since 1949, according to a recent analysis by The Wall Street Journal.