The Wausau area economy turned in a good economic performance during second quarter 1992. The unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent, total employment expanded by over 4 percent, and nonfarm industrial classifications added nearly 900 positions from a year ago. Further, retailers tell us that store traffic and sales are above last year's. Also help wanted advertising has bounced back from last year's low level. Generally speaking, public assistance and unemployment claim data were lower than last year. Finally, both residential and nonresidential construction were robust. 

     However, there are some dark clouds floating over the local area economy. Layoffs at Marment, Marathon Electric, Wausau Metals, and J.I. Case put a damper on this quarter's report. Slack in national demand for the products of these companies played a major role in each case. This reinforces the notion of how interdependent our local economy is with the rest of the nation. 

     Marathon County nonfarm employment expanded by 900 positions or approximately by 1.7 percent from June 1991 (Table 7). The manufacturing, services, and government sectors gained 1,000, 200, and 500 people respectively. Whereas trade and construction payrolls were lower by 400 each when compared to last year. In sum, there now are 55,000 employed in these industrial sector occupations as of June 1992. As mentioned elsewhere in this quarter's report, the numbers do not distinguish between part‑time and full‑time jobs nor do they say anything about whether a job is high or low paying. 

     Retailer confidence in the local area continues to be on the optimistic side (Table 8). This group of merchants told the CWERB that store traffic and sales have been better than last year during June. When it comes to future activity they believe that matters will definitely be on the upswing in the quarter ahead. This is quite an interesting development given that recent consumer sentiment at the national level has been so sour.
 

     Table 9 data implies that help wanted advertising in the Wausau area is approximately 21 percent higher than one year ago. The mark of 218 indicates that there are 2.2 jobs being advertised for every one job in 1980. The national help wanted advertising index remains below the level of long ago 1967. This gives us some insight into the employment difficulties being experienced by so many people across this country.
 

     New public assistance claims in the Wausau area fell from 15 to 11 on a monthly average basis, a decline of 26 percent (Table 10). However, the total caseload rose from 90 to 97 from June 1991. Our other measure of local family distress is employment claim data, see Table 11. Here it can be learned that initial unemployment claims on a weekly average basis fell from 298 to 261, a decline of 12 percent from June 1991. Further, total unemployment claims contracted slightly, from 2,229 to 2,179 on a weekly average basis from a year ago.
 

     Once again it can be reported that the residential construction scene in the Wausau area is booming (Table 12). Residential permits issued, their estimated value, the number of housing units, and residential alteration permits issued all exceeded last year's levels of activity. For the record, these categories were 20, 39, 40, and 2 percent higher than in June of 1991, respectively. Low interest rates, the availability of land, and a generally sound local economy are all playing a role in these developments.
 

     Table 13 displays nonresidential activity in the area. As always, percentage changes are not given due to the volatile and singular nature of this kind of activity. The number of permits was 12 for second quarter 1992. Further, the estimated value of these projects was estimated to be nearly $17.6 million. The largest portion of this number, $14.8 million, can be associated with the new middle school. Finally, alteration permits for second quarter reached 49 with an estimated value of $9.3 million. Large alterations for second quarter include the $6 million expansion of Wausau Insurance and a $1 million project at Wausau Title.

     Financial statistics for the greater Wausau area are listed in Table 14. Bank deposits went from $682.5 million to $712.8 million, a 4.4 percent increase from last year. This measure of local liquidity rose by about $30 million over the past 12 months. Bank lending grew but by a smaller 2.1 percent. The amount of lending rose from $525.8 million to $536.8 million or an $11 million increase since last year.