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Highlights of this quarter's report are as follows: The unemployment rate in
Portage county has dropped to 5.9 percent. Total employment, based on a
survey of households, increased by 1.5 percent. Employment estimates
based on a survey of employers increased by 0.3 percent. Merchants are
more pessimistic about retail conditions than a year ago. Help wanted
advertising fell from last year's level. Public assistance claims have
fallen for new applications, but total caseload is running well ahead of last
year. Lastly, unemployment claims have declined for both new and total
categories.
Portage county industrial sector employment is presented in Table
7. These data are generated from a survey of business firms.
Total nonfarm employment increased by a small 0.3 percent from last year.
Sectors experiencing growth were construction and natural resources, trade,
transportation and utilities, education and health services, and information
and business services. Sectors contracting from a year ago include
manufacturing, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and government
payrolls.
Retailer confidence for the Stevens Point-Plover Area is listed in Table
8. In general the panel shows that total sales compared to a year
ago are lower. Store traffic, not surprisingly, was also assessed as
being off the pace from a year ago. When this group was queried about
the future they felt that store traffic and sales would be only modestly
better than the previous twelve months. These results contradict the
sales tax collection data. Often times fluctuations in the recording and
tabulations of these numbers by the state makes them less comparable to the
retailer survey.
Help wanted advertising is a very useful tool to assess conditions in a local
labor market (Table 9). The greater Stevens Point
area index has declined from 89 in 2003 to 78 this year. Meanwhile the
U.S. index was virtually unchanged from a year ago. This variable
signals that the overall labor market situation is weaker than what one would
normally expect this far into an economic expansion.
Public assistance claims for Portage county are in Table 10.
New applications on a weekly average basis fell from 298 to 231 a 22.6 percent
decline. Total caseload meanwhile rose from 3,022 to 4,220, or by nearly
40 percent over the year. The total caseload figure shows the general
rise in public assistance that transpired over the past twelve months.
Another measure of family financial distress comes from unemployment claim
data (Table 11). New claims on a weekly average
basis declined from 285 to 195, or by 31.4 percent over the past twelve
months. In addition total claims fell from 2,235 to 1,967, or by 12.0
percent. Thus both measures of unemployment claims are below last
year's levels.
Residential construction in the area is presented in Table
12. The number of residential permits issued rose from 24 to 26 over
the past year. However, the estimated value of new construction fell by
0.8 percent. The number of housing units remained unchanged from last
year, staying at 27 units. The number of residential alteration permits
increased by 10.1 percent. However, there was a sharp drop in the
estimated value of the alteration activity. The value fell from $1.04
million to $705.4 thousand, or a decline of 32 percent.
Table 13 presents nonresidential construction in the
area. This data is given without percentage changes because business
investment is often times a very volatile activity that is subject to great
deal of variability. The number of new permits issued was three and
their estimated value was $280 thousand. Meanwhile business alteration
activity reached 33 permits and these were estimated to have a value of $2.9
million. |
