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Though
the unemployment rates throughout the region have risen, they are still low
from a historical standpoint. In
contrast, employment in the area is above last year's mark with the region
performing better in this regard than the state and nation.
Manufacturing continues to bear the brunt of the economic difficulties.
Employment in manufacturing is about 3 percent lower than a year ago.
Area business executives feel that the economy will strengthen later
this year.
Unemployment
rates have risen over the past twelve months (Table 2).
The unemployment rates in Marathon, Portage, and Wood counties rose to
3.8 percent, 4.5 percent, and 5.1 percent respectively.
Moreover the Central Wisconsin labor force weighted unemployment rate
increased from 3.8 percent to 4.3 percent over the last twelve months.
Likewise the Wisconsin unemployment rate rose from 4.4 percent to 4.9
percent, and the U.S. unemployment rate climbed from 5.4 percent to 5.7
percent.
Though
total employment for the U.S. contracted from December 2001 to December 2002,
employment in Central Wisconsin has expanded (Table 3).
Portage county payrolls are estimated to have increased by 4.0 percent,
Marathon county by 3.4 percent, and Wood county 1.4 percent.
Employment in Central Wisconsin climbed as well rising from 146.1
thousand to 150.5 thousand over the course of the year.
Over the same period Wisconsin's payrolls are estimated to have grown
by 1.8 percent.
Industrial
sector employment shows that manufacturing experienced another difficult year
(Table 4). Manufacturing
payrolls in Central Wisconsin declined by 2.6 percent from last year.
Even though construction activity has been brisk in the area,
construction employment fell from 6.3 thousand to 5.0 thousand.
However, better news comes from the services and trade sectors.
Employment expanded by 1.7 percent and 6.3 percent respectively in
these sectors.
Sales
tax distributions rose from $995.1 thousand to $1.1 million, or 7.5 percent in
Portage county (Table 5). During the same time frame,
Marathon county sales tax distributions rose from $2.35 million to $2.38
million or 1.1 percent. Generally speaking, sales tax collections are a
barometer of the amount of economic activity taking place in an area.
The
Tables 5A and 5B present a historic
overview showing the growth of manufacturing, services, trade, construction,
and government sectors over the past five years. These charts also give some
sense of the magnitude of the change and relative importance of each sector to
the Central Wisconsin economy.
The CWERB survey of regional business leaders is presented in Table_6.
When this panel was asked to assess recent change at the national and
local levels, they indicated that the national economic situation was
unchanged but they felt that local conditions had deteriorated over the past
year. However, this group was
much more optimistic with regard to the future. Their forecast for the national economy, the local economy,
and their particular industry was upbeat in nature. Hopefully their forecast will prove to be prophetic. |
