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When
an economy begins to recover from a recession, often both the level of
employment and the unemployment rate will increase simultaneously. That is true for Central Wisconsin. This occurs when the number of jobs being created runs behind
the increase in the number of people seeking employment. Only later in a recovery, when business firms are sure that
the expansion is sustainable, will the increase in hiring rates drive down the
unemployment rate.
Unemployment
rates in all reporting areas were higher than a year ago (Table
2).
The unemployment rates in Marathon, Portage, and Wood County's were
6.6, 6.3, and 8.7 percent, respectively.
The labor force weighted unemployment rate for Central Wisconsin went
from 6.3 to 7.1 percent over the past twelve months.
Likewise the unemployment rates for the state rose 5.3 to 6.5 percent
and the nation from 4.6 to 6.1 percent.
Table
3 shows that total employment increased in nearly every reporting area. Marathon, Portage, and Wood County's experienced respective
increases of 2.4, 2.3, and 3.7 percent. Central
Wisconsin total employment is estimated to have increased from 142.8 to 146.7
thousand jobs, comprising a healthy gain of 2.7 percent.
Similarly, the state experienced an increase in jobs from 2.8 to 2.9
million, a 1.6 percent rise in employment.
The U.S., however, experienced a decline falling from 135.3 to 133.4
million positions, a decline of about 1.4 percent.
Industrial
sector employment increased in the services, trade, and government sectors (Table
4).
These sectors grew by 2.3, 4.4, and 2.7 percent respectively.
Manufacturing payrolls have been hard hit by the recession.
The number of jobs in manufacturing declined from 34.4 to 32.7 thousand
in Central Wisconsin, a contraction of almost 5 percent.
Construction employment was well off the pace of a year earlier.
Construction payrolls fell from 5.3 to 4.4 thousand, a 17 percent
decline from 2001.
Another
measure of economic activity is county sales tax distributions (Table
5). These data suggest that retail collections in Portage County
declined from $971.6 to $959.6 thousand, a drop of 1.2 percent from last year.
In sharp contrast, the Marathon County sales tax figures suggest that
collections there grew from $2.2 to $2.4 million over the past twelve months,
or a gain of about 9.0 percent. The
sales tax data do not capture all economic activity that takes place in a
county because many transactions are exempt from the sales tax.
The
CWERB poll of regional business executives displayed in Table 6 shows a
rebound in the assessment of economic conditions.
The group believes economic conditions at the national and local levels
have stabilized. This is in
drastic contrast to last December, when they felt quite strongly that economic
conditions had deteriorated. This
group is fairly optimistic about the direction of the national and local
economies, and in the direction of their particular industry. Thus, our group of business executives is forecasting better
times for later this year. |
