The Wausau area economy continued to do well in Third Quarter 2000.  For example, the unemployment rate is below 3.0 percent.  In addition, total employment is estimated to have grown by 4.4 percent over the past twelve months.  Most of the other economic indicators presented in this report were positive in nature and suggest that the area economy is on solid footing.

     Marathon County industrial sector employment is given in Table 7.  Services and trade payrolls expanded by robust percentages.  Services and trade are estimated to have grown by 8.1 and 6.0 percent respectively.  During the same time period, government jobs expanded by 100 positions, or 1.3 percent.  On the downside, manufacturing and construction employment are lower than a year ago.  Manufacturing and construction are estimated to have contracted by 2.1 and 2.8 percent respectively.

     The CWERB survey of local merchants shows that this group remains very optimistic about retail activity in the local area (Table 8).  This group believes that total sales and store traffic in Third Quarter 2000 were noticeably better than at the same time a year ago.  Moreover, this group holds the opinion that store sales and traffic during the all important Christmas selling season will be above the marks of last year.  This assessment bodes well for the local economy.

     The CWERB help wanted advertising index is a good barometer of labor market conditions (Table 9).  Even though it only captures a small part of the activity in the labor market, it is nonetheless a good indicator of conditions.  The index for Third Quarter rose from 149 to 177 over the past twelve months.  This result indicates a growing demand in the labor market.  The 177 mark means that there are 1.77 jobs being advertised for each job in the base year.

     Several layoffs in the area served to cause unemployment claims to rise in Third Quarter (Table 10).  New unemployment claims on a weekly average basis rose from 137 to 209, an increase of 52.6 percent.  Likewise, total claims on a weekly average basis expanded from 982 to 1,136, for an increase of 15.7 percent.  Thus, even with total employment increasing from 70.6 to 73.7 thousand, there has been some turnover in the local labor force.

     Residential construction was very strong during Third Quarter 2000 (Table 11).  The number of residential permits issued rose by 18.1 percent, and the estimated value of this activity was 20.4 percent higher than the year before.  In addition, these residential permits resulted in a 19.2 percent increase in the number of units constructed.  Residential alteration activity was also brisk.  The number of alteration permits was 330 and their value was estimated at $2.1 million.

     Due to the volatile nature of nonresidential construction activity percentages changes are not given in Table 12.  However, it can be noted that Third Quarter 2000 was generally stronger than Third Quarter 1999.  The number of permits issued was 11 and their estimated value was $4.5 million.  Moreover, the number of business alteration permits was 49 for Third Quarter and their value was estimated at $12.8 million.

     The CWERB sample of area financial institutions is given in Table 13.  Bank deposits rose from $2.08 billion to $2.15 billion over the course of the year.  Financial institutional lending in the sample contracted from $1.82 billion to $1.78 billion in the year over comparison.