Portage County manufacturing employment rose by 800 positions or by 14.5 percent.  Likewise, services added 300 jobs, and grew by 4.5 percent over the period.  Trade and government payrolls were lower by 200 and 900 positions respectively from last year.  Construction employment, which was stable over the year, is estimated to be 1,400 positions (Table 7).

     The CWERB panel of local merchants is presented in Table 8.  Area merchants believe that store sales are at about the same level as a year ago, and that store traffic is somewhat lower than in 1999.  Retail sales over the past number of years have been strong for the area.  Therefore, the results are more positive in nature than what one might think at first glance.  This group also holds the position that store sales and traffic will improve slightly next quarter as compared to a year ago.

     Help wanted advertising in the area is at a record high (Table 9).  The reading of 423 indicates there are 4.2 jobs being advertised for each job in the base year.  Clearly the help wanted advertising index captures only a small portion of the total amount of activity that exists in the job market.  However, it does serve as a good barometer as to which way the economic winds are blowing.

     Not all of this quarter's economic news is good.  A measure of local family financial distress is public assistance claims.  New applications on a monthly basis rose from 106 to 370.  Moreover, the total caseload figure rose from 1,848 to 2,098 over the past year (Table 10).  Thus, the data shows that there are families in the area that are experiencing financial distress.  In addition, there were increases registered in new and total unemployment claim data (Table 11).  Specifically, new claims rose from 46 to 52 and total claims increased from 136 to 148 over the past twelve months.  Given the larger increases in public assistance as compared to unemployment claims, it would appear that the increase in the former might be rooted in factors other than those associated with economic conditions.

     Construction activity in the greater Stevens Point-Plover area continues to do well (Table 12).  Residential permits issued stayed at the elevated level of last year.  Moreover, the value of this year's residential construction grew by 24.1 percent.  The actual number of housing units rose by a dramatic 121.2 percent.  A number of new multi-unit structures accounted for this outcome.  There was also an increase in the amount of alteration activities.  The number of permits rose by 8.8 percent and the estimated value of the construction was 27.8 percent above last year's figure.

     More good news comes from the nonresidential construction figures (Table 13).  The number of permits was 14 and the value was estimated to be $14.2 million dollars during Third Quarter.  The number of business alteration permits was 38 and the value associated with this activity was approximately $3.0 million.

     Financial activity in the local area continues to grow (Table 14).  Our sample of local financial institutions suggests that deposits rose by approximately 7.2 percent from the same time last year.  In addition, bank lending in our sample suggests that loan activity increased from $356.3 million to $402.6, or 13.0 percent from a year ago.  Both the lending and deposits figures indicate that the local area economy is growing at a respectable clip.