The local economy continues to expand as it has for most of the decade. Even though the unemployment rate went up, the number of people employed increased by approximately 1000 indicating that many formerly discouraged workers have re-entered the labor market. It appears that the labor force has responded to the overall improvement in local economic conditions.

     The Stevens Point area economy has many pluses going for it as 1989 unfolds. Expansions at Consolidated Paper, First Financial, and Woodward Governor and renewed vitality at Sentry Insurance and Worzella Publishing should stimulate the local economy. An area of great concern, however, is the local agricultural situation. If weather conditions are more favorable for the 1989 growing season, local agri-business should be able to rebound from the drought related difficulties of last year. The importance of the agricultural sector to the local community is greater than its numbers would suggest due to the capital intensiveness of the industry and because of intersectoral dependencies.

     Portage County employment by major industrial sector is presented in Table 7. Service employment grew by 1150 positions from a year ago. Manufacturing and construction also posted substantial increases. Figures for first quarter government employment are suspect due to difficulties encountered by the state in compiling the data. An expected upward revision would put these figures more into line with past first quarter results. Other sectors, for which more reliable estimates are available, show record employment levels for this time of year.

     Retailer confidence for Stevens Point is given in Table 8. The survey indicates that store traffic and sales were slightly higher than last year. Furthermore, retailers believe that matters will be on an upswing in the near future. The results are consistent with other data suggesting that the economy did expand during the last period and will more than likely continue to do so.

     Another aspect of the local economy is the condition of the labor market. The CWERB's help wanted advertising index, displayed in Table 9, measures labor demand in the Stevens Point area. As of March 1989 there was a 146 percent increase in the number of jobs being advertised compared to 1980. There has been an increase of 8 percent from just a year ago. An expanding index is a good indicator that payrolls will increase in the future. Finally, the labor index has reached a new all-time high for March. This is indicative of a growing economy.          

     Table 10 presents data on public assistance claims. New applications were up by 26 percent or 31 cases. However, total claims were lower by 12 percent. Unemployment claims data, as shown in Table 11, presents a different picture. The number of new claims filed has contracted by 21 percent while total claims were up by 4.1 percent. Thus, mixed signals are coming from the two measures of local family financial distress.

     Residential construction is a leading economic indicator. Table 12 shows that the local residential construction scene has, in fact, contracted from the levels of a year ago. Higher interest rates and modest population growth may be combining to constrain this type of activity. Furthermore, pent up new housing demand may have been satisfied during the "housing boom" of the last few years. Regardless of the cause, this downward movement in residential construction activity merits further attention.

     Nonresidential construction statistics are given in Table 13. The number of permits issued for first quarter 1989 was 5. The estimated value of these new structures was $1,877 ,000. In addition 38 nonresidential alteration permits for alterations estimated at $276,300 were requested. These figures all fall well within historic norms for the area for the first quarter time period.

     Financial statistics can provide important insights into the health and vitality of the local economy. Table 14 lists bank deposit and loan figures for 1st quarter 1989. Bank deposits, a measure of local liquidity, jumped by approximately 5 percent from 1988. Lending activity was higher by an incredible 20.1 percent. As a matter of record, the $207 million represents an all-time high level of lending for the sample, regardless of time of year. This would indicate that spending in the local area increased substantially from a year ago.