The Wood County area economy has held up quite well in light of the national recession. For example, the unemployment rate is low and remains stable. Moreover, total employment is higher than a year ago. However, there are some lingering issues surrounding the Wood County area economy. The economic situations of Figis, Stora Enso, and Northland Cranberry, et. al. are creating a degree of uncertainty for the area economy.

     Wood County industrial sector employment is given in Table 7. Manufacturing and trade employment have been hit hard by the current economic climate. Manufacturing payrolls are estimated to be 3.0 percent lower than twelve months ago, and trade is down by 3.6 percent over the same period. Better news comes from the services and government sectors in the Wood County economy. Services gained approximately 400 positions, and government added 100 positions to area payrolls. Construction employment remained unchanged from a year ago, 1.7 thousand positions. The CWERB Marshfield Employment Index rose from 172.8 to 173.7, or 0.5 percent. This means that Marshfield employment is estimated to have grown by about 0.5 percent from last year.

     The CWERB retailer survey is given in Table 8. Marshfield area merchants told the CWERB that Fourth Quarter store sales and traffic were about at the same level as one year ago. This is a big improvement over their assessment of Third Quarter. Similarly we see a rebound in their sentiment about store traffic and sales three months from now compared to one year ago. The marks for store traffic and sales were above 50, which means they expect to see an increase in store activity.

     Help wanted advertising continues to contract in the area (Table 9). This barometer of local labor market conditions fell from 180 to 116 over the past year. The 116 reading means there are 1.16 jobs being advertised for each position in the base year of 1980. Similarly the U.S. help wanted advertising index fell sharply from 79 to 45. Both indexes indicate that labor market conditions have deteriorated for those seeking work.

     Public assistance claims in Wood County rose in our year over comparison with 2000 (Table 10). The total caseload in Wood County increased from 2,676 to 2,980, or by 11.4 percent. Another measure of local family distress is unemployment claim data (Table 11). The unemployment claim data for Wood county also indicates an increase in local family financial distress. The number of new claims rose from 355 to 374, or 5.4 percent. Likewise total claims climbed from 1,230 to 1,314, or by nearly 7.0 percent. Both public assistance and unemployment claim data indicate that a deterioration in the economic well being for some area residents has taken place.

     Residential construction activity was for the most part off the pace of a year ago (Table 12). The number of permits fell by 31.3 percent and the estimated value of the new home construction dropped by almost 50 percent. In addition the number of housing units fell by 43 percent. On the brighter side, the number of residential alteration permits increased by about 22 percent. Meanwhile the estimated value of the alteration permits fell by nearly 31 percent from Fourth Quarter 2000.

     Better results come from the nonresidential figures for the area (Table 13). The number of permits reached 17 and they are estimated to have a value of $612.1 thousand. During the same period the number of business alteration permits reach 12 and these alterations were valued at $975.3 thousand. Please note that percentage changes are not given in Table 13 for nonresidential construction activity. This type of activity tends to fluctuate a great deal from period to period and thus the percentage changes can vary dramatically.

     Clark County data are presented in Table 14 and 15. The economic data for Clark County was surprisingly good given the overall recessionary environment. Employment was higher in four out of five industrial sector categories. Moreover, total employment is estimated to be 1.4 percent higher than a year ago. Admittedly the unemployment rate rose from 5.8 to 6.4 percent, but this was due to the labor force growing at a more rapid rate than the number of jobs being created.

1.7

1.7

+1.8

42

55

33

45

52

55

116

2,676

2,980

+11.4

355

374

1230

1314

21

12

23

28

+21.7

-30.7

8

17

9

12

3,254

2,223

-1.5

448

489

+0.8

5.8%

6.4%

14,821

15,028

906

1,026

15,727

16,054