The national and state economies are showing some signs of weakness.  Locally, industrial sector employment has experienced a decline and retailers are quite pessimistic about the future.  In addition, help wanted advertising is well off the pace of a year ago.  Data showing some signs of improvement, however, in the Marshfield-Wood County area relate to employment.  The unemployment rate declined from a year ago, and estimated total employment is ahead of last year's mark.  Although the local economy has some negative signals, overall the economy appears to be weathering the situation.

     Wood County industrial sector employment struggled to meet last year's figures. Manufacturing employment is estimated to be 1.0 percent lower than a year ago. Over the same time period construction and government payrolls were estimated to be unchanged. Better news was registered in the categories of services and trade. Services and trade employment are thought to be 2.8 and 1.0 percent higher than a year ago. The Marshfield Employment Index rose from 168.5 to 171.6. Thus, employment in the services dominated Marshfield economy is believed to have grown by approximately 1.8 percent from a year ago (Table 7).

     The CWERB survey of local merchants shows that there has been a marked increase in the amount of pessimism expressed about the local retail scene (Table 8). This group holds the opinion that total store sales are well below last year's mark. Also a very dramatic decline is thought to have taken place in the amount of store traffic coming through their establishments. When this group was asked to forecast future retail activity they indicated that store sales and traffic would be markedly lower than a year ago at the same time. This is particularly disturbing because this represents the all-important Christmas sales period.

     Help wanted advertising fell dramatically in the Marshfield area (Table 9). This barometer of business hiring intentions slid from 352 to 168 over the course of the past twelve months. This represents a record drop of 52 percent. Likewise, the national help wanted advertising index took a sharp plunge, from 78 to 53, or a decline of about 32 percent. This data clearly suggests that there has been a substantial shift in business firm hiring plans.

     Public assistance claims for Wood County are presented on a monthly average basis in Table 10.  Layoffs at area employers have had a dramatic impact on the number of public assistance claims.  The total caseload has gone up from 2,324 to 2,889 or by 24.3 percent.  This is a significant increase, which signals that the level of financial family distress has risen in Wood County.  Unemployment claims are given in Table 11. New claims on a weekly average basis rose from 191 to 208, a gain of 8.9 percent over last year. A much sharper increase was registered for the total claims. Total claims rocketed upwards from 891 to 1,167, a gain of 31 percent. With the soft economy and the announced closing of a Wood County cheese factory, unemployment claims are likely to increase in the area.

     Some good news comes from the residential construction scene. Every category of activity is higher than a year ago (Table 12). The number of permits issued rose by 33 and the estimated value of this new construction climbed by nearly 60 percent. There was also a surge in the number of housing units constructed. This activity increased from 14 to 31 in a year over comparison. Likewise, residential alteration permits grew from 61 to 76 and the associated value of the alteration activity increased by about 17.0 percent.

     Nonresidential construction varies greatly from year to year; hence, no percentages are given in Table 13. The number of permits issued was 40 in Third Quarter 2001 and they were estimated to be worth $9.2 million. Business alteration permits in the Marshfield area stayed at around 14 with an estimated value of $1.04 million.

     The Clark County area economy has held up surprisingly well in light of national economic slowdown. The manufacturing, services, and construction sector all added people to their respective payrolls (Table 14). Only trade and construction posted lower numbers than the year before. Moreover, the total number employed in the County rose from 15,497 to 15,869 a gain of about 2.4 percent. The unemployment rate, however, went up because the labor force grew more quickly than the number of jobs (Table 15).