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There
is evidence to support the notion that the First Quarter 2001 was a period of
economic retrenchment in the county. Many
of this quarter's economic indicators were less positive than a year ago.
Wood
County industrial sector employment is given in Table 7. Manufacturing, construction, and government payrolls either
contracted or stayed the same level as last year. Specifically, manufacturing remained at the level of 9.9
thousand, construction employment fell by 100 positions, and government was also
lower by 100 positions. Positive
news comes from the services sectors where 800 jobs were added, and trade shot
up an estimated 1,800 positions. The
Marshfield Index surged forward by 10.2 percent. This happened because Marshfield is dominated by the service
sector and the services sector for Wood County is estimated to have increased by
6.2 percent. Therefore, Marshfield
would stand to benefit from this situation.
Retailer
confidence in the Marshfield area is given in Table 8.
Local merchants were quite pessimistic in their assessment of the local
retail scene. Total sales and store
traffic were deemed to be significantly lower than a year ago.
Usually this group is quite upbeat in their outlook, so these results are
especially noteworthy. Moreover,
this group does not see matters improving in the upcoming quarter.
Help
wanted advertising in the local area took a dramatic plunge from last year
(Table 9).
The index fell from 273 to 150. The
150 mark means there are 1.5 positions being advertised for each job in the base
year. Similarly, the national help wanted advertising index fell
from 88 to 71. The decline in these
indexes signals that firms are cutting back on their hiring plans in response to
a softening economy.
This
report contains several measures of local family financial distress.
Public assistance claims on a monthly average basis for Wood County rose
from 2,576 to 2,676 or by almost 4.0 percent since First Quarter 2000
(Table 10).
Increases are also reported for the unemployment claim data
(Table 11).
New claims on a weekly average basis rose from 102 to 124 on a countywide
basis. Meanwhile, the total claims
figure rocketed upwards from 272 to 415. Clearly the business restructuring that is taking place in
Wood County is showing up in the claims data.
The
Marshfield residential construction picture showed some improvement over last
year's marks (Table 12). The number of
residential permits issued climbed from 4 to 7, and the estimated value of this
activity rose from $507.5 thousand to $876.0 thousand.
The number of housing units went up from 5 to 8.
On the downside residential alteration permits fell from 27 to 22, but
the value of alteration activity increased from $193.5 thousand to $300.9
thousand over the year.
Nonresidential
construction is presented without percentage changes because it is an inherently
volatile sector (Table 13). The number of
permits issued was 4 and their value is estimated to be at $411 thousand.
The number of alteration permits was 11 and they are estimated to be
worth $1.3 million.
Financial
statistics for the local area shows that the economy has experienced a period of
sluggishness (Table 14). Bank deposits in our
sample contracted from $191.3 million to $187.0 million, or 2.2 percent.
At the same time, bank lending fell ever so slightly from $170.5 million
to $169.6 million, or about 0.5 percent in our year over comparison.
Clark
County data are presented in Table 15 and
Table 16.
Manufacturing, trade, and construction posted payroll increases from a
year ago. Services and government,
however, lost some people on their respective payrolls.
The economic figures also show that the unemployment rate surged from 7.5
to 10.9 percent and the total number of people employed contracted from 14,917
to 14,625. Thus, Clark County has also been impacted by the slowing
national economy. |
