The Wausau area economy is being affected by the recession, but to a much smaller degree than other regions of the country. For reasons mentioned in other sections of this report, the local area, Central Wisconsin, and the state have continued to weather these times of economic uncertainty. For the Wausau area, the unemployment rate has risen but not to a disastrous extent. Total employment and industrial employment are slightly higher than a year ago. Moreover, it is generally believed that the retail sector had a reasonably decent year. On the downside of local conditions, public assistance and unemployment claims filed expanded from a year ago and growth rates for financial statistics are not as robust as in past periods. Finally, the agricultural sector, especially the dairy farmers of our region, is facing difficult times as a result of low milk prices. Due to financial strain, the prognosis is that over the next decade, there will be a continued and significant contraction in the number of farms in the state. 

     Marathon County employment figures, displayed in Table 7, show a small amount of growth in these categories from last year. Manufacturing employment was actually lower by 400 jobs. However, good news comes from the services, trade, and construction sectors, where payrolls expanded by 600, 200, and 400. Government employment was unchanged from fourth quarter 1990. In sum, these industrial classifications expanded from 53.1 thousand to 53.9 thousand jobs over the course of the year. This represents a growth rate of about 1.5 percent. This very modest expansion in payrolls is undoubtedly being influenced by the national economic environment. 

     Our panel of local merchants, unlike those in some other Central Wisconsin communities, tell the CWERB that store traffic and sales were higher than last year (Table 8). This is consistent with recently released sales tax collection data from the area. These merchants also believe that store traffic and sales will improve in the months ahead when compared to last year's retail market. The information in Table 8 suggests that the local retail sector outperformed the national retail sector, where gains have been much harder to achieve. 

     Help wanted advertising in Table 9 tells us that job listings in the newspaper have held constant over the past year. Compared to the national situation, where advertising fell by 10 points or approximately 17 percent, the local employment climate seems much warmer indeed. In the Wausau area, the index tells the reader that there are 1.86 positions being advertised currently for every 1.0 positions in 1980. Since the population has not grown by a similar factor, this result can not be accounted for by population growth. 

     Table 10 and Table 11, our measures of local family financial distress, show that there are financial problems in the community. But, only a portion of the results can be directly attributed to economic conditions. New applications for public assistance rose from 13 to 21 on a monthly average basis, a gain of 61.5 percent, while the total caseload for public assistance rose from 61 to 82 on a monthly average basis, an increase of 34.4 percent. When it comes to unemployment claims on a weekly average basis, the number of initial claims rose from 431 to 532. This increase of 101 claims represents a 23.4 percent jump. Likewise, total unemployment claims expanded by 170, a percentage gain of 9.2 percent from last year. 

     Lower interest rates have helped spur new residential construction (Table 12). The number of permits issued, the estimated value of new residential construction, and the number of units all surpassed last year's rather robust figures, increasing by 60 percent, 45 percent, and 13 percent respectively. However, alteration permits and the estimated value of residential alterations fell by 15 percent and 13 percent when contrasted with 1990. 

     As stated in previous Economic Indicators, nonresidential construction is an extremely volatile activity (Table 13). Due to the singular nature of these kinds of projects, no percentage changes are given. Good news comes from the fact that the number of nonresidential permits issued, the estimated value of permits issued, and the number of alteration permits issued exceeded last year's totals. Only the estimated value of nonresidential alterations fell from 1990. 

     Financial statistics for the quarter are displayed in Table 14. Bank deposits expanded by $5 million or 0.7 percent. This information gives insight into local income and liquidity. The results for this quarter are weaker than usual. Bank lending in the area rose by $9.5 million. That represents an increase of 1.8 percent over the past twelve months. It should be noted that deposit and lending growth failed to keep pace with inflation, which was near the 3.0 percent mark.