Table 7 Table 8 Table 9 Table 10 Table 11 Table 12 Table 13 Table 14

     This report contains good news for the local area. The unemployment rate is down to 4.8 percent, industrial sector employment rose by approximately 2.3 percent, and residential construction was quite strong. Likewise, other indicators of economic performance tell a similar story. For instance, measures of family financial distress are much lower, help wanted advertising remains elevated, and local retailers are upbeat about the local economy. 

     Marathon county industrial sector employment rose by an estimated 1,400 positions or 2.3 percent from a year ago (Table 7). Thus, there are now 62 thousand people employed in the local economy. Manufacturing and services lead the expansion by adding 500 jobs each to their payrolls. Following closely behind was the trade sector, which added 400 persons. The construction and government sectors lagged the others in job generation. Construction gained 100 positions and government lost 100 positions. 

     Local merchants are upbeat when assessing recent activity in the retail sector (Table 8). Total sales and store traffic are deemed to be moderately ahead of last year's results. Further, this panel believes that store traffic and sales will expand well beyond last year's figures. Even though local merchants are optimistic with regard to the future, the level of optimism expressed for our local area has been trending downward since mid‑1996. 

     Local labor market conditions are assessed by the use of the CWERB help wanted advertising index (Table 9). The index stands at 154 in March. This means there are 1.5 jobs being advertised for every position listed in the base year. However, even though the index remains at an elevated level, it has been trending downward since late 1995. Thus, job creation will continue in the months ahead, however the pace of growth will moderate. 

     Table 10 shows that public assistance claims in Wausau have fallen to unbelievably low levels. New applications on a monthly average basis fell from 8 to 2. Further, the total caseload declined from 21 to just 9. Please note, however, that as of January 1996, the state of Wisconsin no longer made it mandatory for counties to fund general assistance, some counties have excluded it completely. Marathon county still funds general relief but has cut down on the amount. Further, persons are only eligible for funding for one month in a twelvemonth period. This factor is undoubtedly playing a key role in the reported decline. 

     Another indicator of local family financial distress are unemployment claims data (Table 11). New claims on a weekly average basis dropped by a healthy 13.5 percent and likewise total claims fell by 15.5 percent. Of great interest is the fact that total claims have been trending sharply downward since the latter part of 1995. This trend is also evident in new claims data. The data for total and new claims tell us that the economy has been developing, economically speaking, over the past year or more.

     By in large, residential construction activity was strong during First Quarter (Table 12). Residential permits issued and estimated values jumped by 14.3 and 30.1 percent respectively. The number of housing units under construction leaped upward by 31.7 percent. However, even though alteration activity remained substantial, it lagged last year's results. The number of permits declined from 110 to 98 and the value of this activity declined from $1.1 million to $640.0 thousand.
 

     As usual, nonresidential construction is presented without percent changes due to the period‑to‑period volatility of this kind of activity (Table 13). The number of permits was 5 and they had an estimated value of $1.7 million. The number of alteration permits, 44, was quite high for a first quarter. The estimated value of all of this activity was approximately $4.5 million. Thus, a fair amount of construction was slated to take place during the quarter. 

     Table 14 shows there were some rather substantial changes that took place in our sample of area financial institutions. Bank deposits expanded from $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion or by 9.0 percent from last year. More good news came from this quarter's lending statistics. Bank loans climbed from $932.0 million to 1.0 billion during First Quarter. The levels of lending and deposit activity bode well for the local economy.