Marshfield

     Highlights of the report include: industrial sector employment is off the pace of last year; retailer confidence has grown over the past 12 months; help wanted advertising has surged; total caseload in public assistance has dropped sharply; new unemployment claims have risen while the total caseload has actually gone down; residential and nonresidential is generally off the pace of a year ago; and the Clark County economy appears to be healthy and moving forward.  

     Total nonfarm employment is based upon a statewide survey of employment (Table 7).  For Wood County the state estimates that total nonfarm employment contracted by 2.1 percent from June 2004, or by 900 positions.  The largest contributors to the decline were the manufacturing and government sectors.  Each sector lost an estimated 500 positions since June 2004.  The only sector to register an increase was transportation and utilities.  This sector added 200 positions for a 6.2 percent gain.  There were five sectors that were statistically unchanged over the year.   
     The CWERB survey of local merchants is given in Table 8.  In general terms, the level of optimism has risen over the past three months.  When asked about total sales the group felt that retail activity was much better than a year ago.  However, store traffic was judged to be at about the same level as in 2004.  With regard to the future, the merchants felt that store sales would be definitely higher this year when compared to activity levels of last year.  Store traffic is forecasted to be slightly lower in the months ahead. 

     More good news comes from the help wanted advertising index (Table 9).  The index rose sharply from 88 to 105, a healthy 19 percent gain.  Even though the index does not capture all job listings in an economy, it is nonetheless a good barometer of labor market conditions.  The results suggest an increase in the overall pace of hiring activity is now taking place.  Meanwhile the U.S. index remained flat over the past twelve months. 

     Additional good news comes from the public assistance claims data
(Table 10).  For Wood County the total caseload on a monthly average basis declined from 115 to 85 cases.  This is a contraction of about 26 percent.  Another helpful measurement of family financial distress is unemployment claims data (Table 11).  On a county wide basis, new claims rose from 194 to 208, an increase of 7.2 percent.  However, better news comes from the fact that total claims fell from 1,526 to 1,393, or by 8.7 percent. 

     Residential Construction activity was generally off the pace of last year
(Table 12).  The number of residential permits issued contracted by 33.3 percent, and the associated value of the permits fell by 21 percent from a year ago.  Also, the number of housing units declined from 20 to 10 during the period.  Residential alteration permits fell from 285 to 259; however, the associated value climbed from 1.4 million dollars to 1.5 million dollars over the course of the year. 

     Nonresidential construction is presented without percentages (Table 13).  This type of activity tends to be very volatile with sharp upswings or downswings in activity levels.  The number of permits issued was 2 and the value reported was just 2 thousand dollars.  The very small dollar amount of activity is associated with the construction of two small storage sheds.  The number of business alteration permits reached 14 and they are estimated to be worth about 3.3 million dollars. 

     Tables 14 and Table 15 present Clark County data.  Total nonfarm employment rose by 1.9 percent.  Further, the unemployment rate in Clark County has declined from 6 percent to 5 percent over the year.  These and other data are provided for Clark County because it is an important market area for Marshfield area businesses.