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Unemployment
rate changes varied greatly among the reporting areas. However, gains in total
employment were reported in all areas. Industrial sector employment is
presented in a new and more detailed format. The new format is a more accurate
classification system in the sense that it better reflects the type of
activities taking place in a 21st century economy. Lastly, regional business
leaders feel that their particular industries are headed for better times in
the latter part of the year.
The
seasonally unadjusted unemployment rates for the counties of Central Wisconsin
are as follows (Table 2). The Marathon and Wood county
rates fell to 6.3 percent and 7.6 percent respectively. Last year Marathon and
Wood registered 6.6 percent and 8.7 percent rates. However, Portage county's
unemployment rate edged up over the year from 6.3 percent to 6.5 percent.
Meanwhile Wisconsin's unemployment rate was virtually unchanged from the 6.5
percent of last year and the U.S. rate rose from 6.1 percent to 6.2 percent.
Better
news for the region comes from the total employment figures (Table_3).
Marathon, Portage, and Wood payrolls expanded by 1.9 percent, 3.3 percent, and
0.1 percent respectively over the past twelve months. Central Wisconsin's
total employment expanded from 146.7 thousand to 149.3 thousand, or by 1.7
percent since 2002. Wisconsin's total employment is estimated to have grown
by 1.1 percent and the U.S. by 2.5 percent over the same period.
The
industry data in Table 4 is presented in a new format.
As of January 2003 industry data is being reported by the government in the
North American Industry Classification System, NAICS, format. This format
replaces the old Standard Industrial Classification System, SICS. The SICS
industry employment numbers from 2002 do not correspond to the NAICS figures.
Therefore a year over comparison with 2002 is not possible. This problem will
be resolved next year when 2003 NAICS data can be compared to 2004 NAICS
employment numbers. The good news is that the change in the reporting format
gives us a more modern classification system and also provides greater level
of detail.
County
sales tax collections for first quarter 2003 are presented in Table_5.
Portage county collections rose from $999.3 thousand to $1.02 million or about
1.6 percent from a year ago. Similarly Marathon county sales tax collections
rose from $2.38 million to $2.42 million, or about 1.6 percent from last year.
Thus, the sales tax collection data indicates a rather small amount of growth
taking place in the retail sector.
The CWERB survey of area business people is presented in Table
6. Regional business executives believe recent changes at the national and
local levels have weakened since last year. The marks of 37 and 38 for these
questions suggest a great deal of concern about the condition of the economy.
When this survey group was asked to forecast the future they did not feel that
national and local economic conditions would be much different than what they
were one year ago. However, they did feel that their particular industry would
be performing at a greater activity level than last year. However, this would
not happen until sometime later this year. Should this occur it would be
providing a boost to the regional economy. |
