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The second quarter 1992 results for the Marshfield area economy
were a pleasant surprise. The unemployment rate remains at a low
level, total employment is higher than last year by nearly 5
percent, industrial sector jobs grew by 1020, and the
Marshfield employment index increased by 3.1 percent. Furthermore,
retailers are optimistic with regard to future sales, help
wanted advertising remains stable, local indicators of family
financial distress have moderated, and residential construction
is booming in the local area.
Wood
County
employment by industrial sector is presented in
Table 7. Services and government posted
gains of 1030 and 200, respectively since a year ago and
manufacturing employment was unchanged at 10,600. However, trade
and construction payrolls registered small decreases of 200 and
10. Overall, in June 1992, Wood County had 1020 more people
employed than in June 1991, an increase of 2.5 percent. For
Marshfield the CWERB estimates, by the use of its employment
index, that employment has risen by approximately 3 percent from
last year's figure.
Concerning the sentiments of local merchants with regard to the
health of the local economy, see Table 8.
This panel told the CWERB that store traffic and sales were
marginally improved over twelve month earlier. The level of
optimism expressed for each of these questions was about the
same as in March 1992. When queried about the future, this group
of local merchants believes that traffic and sales will exceed
the amounts of a year ago. The level of optimism expressed was
somewhat lower for expected sales than last month. However,
store traffic is forecasted by this group to be stronger than
what was predicted in March.
Help wanted advertising at the national level remains in the
doldrums (Table 9). The national index
level of 91 is lower than the base year level of 1967. Simply
stated, there are fewer jobs being advertising nationally than
in 1967. Closer to home, the Marshfield index for June shows a
level of 212. Even though it's virtually unchanged from a year
ago, the index tells us that there still are 2.12 jobs being
advertised for every one job in 1980.
Public assistance and unemployment claim data are presented in
Table 10 and Table 11.
New public assistance claims on a monthly average basis fell
from 46 to 42, a decline of 8.7 percent, while the total
caseload expanded from 615 to 810, an increase of 31.7 percent
from a year ago. With regard to unemployment claims in
Marshfield, initial claims on a weekly average basis fell from
75 to 33, a decline of 29.3 percent. Further, total unemployment
claims contracted from 162 to 134 or 17.3 percent from second
quarter 1991. In summary, the measures of local family distress
have demonstrated improvement over the course of the year.
A bright spot for the local area is residential construction (Table
12). All categories of activity were well above the totals
established in 1991. Residential permits issued, estimated value
of new homes, the number of units, residential alteration
permits and their estimated value increased 53, 31, 117, 13 and
35 percent respectively. Low interest rates, the availability of
land, and a healthy local economy have all contributed to this
situation.
Nonresidential construction, as alluded to in earlier reports,
tends to be dominated by very large and singular projects. As a
result this kind of activity is highly variable from period to
period, thus percentage changes are not given in
Table 13. In general this quarter's
results are in line with those of past periods. Please see Table
13.
Financial activity in the area is presented by
Table 14. Bank deposits remained
virtually unchanged rising by only 0.4 percent. This measure of
local liquidity rose by just $800 thousand from a year ago. One
possible explanation is that people could be taking their funds
from maturing CD's and placing them into other financial
instruments, e.g. mutual funds, in order to gain higher rates of
return. Bank lending was higher by $2 million over last year,
gain of 1.24. The amount of new lending is probably understated
to the extent that banks have sold mortgages in the
aftermarket.
Table 15 and Table 16
provide important and useful information on the Clark County
economy. This data is given because
Clark County
represents an important market for local businesses. |
