The Marshfield area and Wood county remain on track from an economic standpoint. The unemployment rate is at an incredibly low 2.9 percent. Total employment in the county remains stable, but several of its industrial sectors registered nice gains over the period. Further, many other economic indicators in this report, like help wanted advertising, construction activity, and financial statistics, strongly suggest the economy is more than holding its own in terms of economic performance. 

     In Wood county the manufacturing, services, and trade sectors expanded by 174, 321, and 886 positions respectively since last year (Table 7). These figures represent growth rates of 1.7 percent for manufacturing, 2.0 percent for services, and 9.3. percent for trade. However, construction fell by 169 jobs or 8.7 percent and government payrolls contracted by an estimated 283 or 5.8 percent. The Marshfield Employment Index allows us to estimate that local payrolls expanded by approximately 3.5 percent. 

     The CWERB survey of local merchants suggests that store sales have experienced a modest increase since last year at this time (Table 8).  Moreover, merchants believe that store traffic is about the same as last year. When asked to provide a forecast for the important Christmas selling season, this group responded optimistically that store sales would be noticeably better than a year ago, and store traffic would be moderately better. 

     A barometer of local labor market conditions is help wanted advertising
(Table 9). The index for Marshfield declined from 273 to 241 or 8 percent from 3rd Quarter 1996. However, 241 is a relatively high mark from a historic standpoint. This number indicates there are 2.4 jobs being advertised for each one in the base year. Thus, payrolls are quite likely to be expanding in the months ahead. 

     Public assistance claims on a county wide basis fell by 122 cases or nearly 5 percent from a year ago (Table 10). Thus, we see a continuation in the decline of this indicator. Meanwhile, the unemployment claim data for Wood county shows that new claims remained virtually unchanged from last year, rising from 53 to 55 (Table 11). Total claims, another measure of local family financial distress, expanded, but by just 17 cases for the county, rising from 143 to 160. 

     Residential construction in the Marshfield Area experienced somewhat of a surge in activity (Table 12). Residential permits issued expanded from 8 to 18 and the estimated value of this new construction reached $2.4 million, as compared to just $611 thousand last year. Residential alteration activity fell from 80 to 74 but the estimated value of this activity rose from $430.7 thousand to $609.9 thousand. Thus, overall we see a good sized increase taking place in construction activity. 

     Nonresidential construction is presented without percentage change due to the volatile nature of the activity (Table 13). The number of building permits reached 20 in 3rd Quarter 1997 and they were valued at $916.9 thousand. Also, the number of alteration permits reached 13 during the period and they are estimated to have a combined value of $297.2 thousand. 

     The CWERB sample of local financial institutions indicated that a significant amount of growth occurred (Table 14).  Bank deposits expanded by $15.1 million or 5.4 percent. This increase from $277.1 to $292.2 million bodes well for the area. Similarly good news was registered for bank lending. Loans increased from $238.0 million to $252.8 million over the period. This represents a significant gain of 6.2 percent. 

     Table 15 and Table 16 present economic data for Clark county. Clark is an important area for many Marshfield area businesses. Manufacturing and trade expanded by 171 and 117 positions respectively. Services and construction employment was stable, with very little change being recorded for either sector. Likewise government employment fell ever so slightly, by 1.7 percent from a year ago. Clark county's unemployment rate remains very low. However it did move upwards from 3.6 to 4.1 percent. Total employment in Clark county was stable as there was little change in payrolls over the course of the year. A similar observation can be made for the labor force which changed by a scant ‑0.1 percent.