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The results for first quarter 2007 are as follows. Nonfarm employment
numbers for the county were much improved over last year’s figures. Area
merchants were slightly pessimistic about first quarter store and traffic
levels. However, they were much more upbeat about future sales and store
traffic. Help wanted advertising in the area was about 11 percent higher
than a year ago. New public assistance claims have leveled out in the area,
but the total caseload number remains well above last year’s figures.
Further, unemployment claims, both new and total, have stabilized in the
area and are virtually unchanged from a year ago. Like at the national
level, residential construction of new homes had fallen from last year’s
pace. However, residential alteration activity is well above last year’s
totals. Finally, nonresidential construction has been and still remains a
solid component of this area’s economic growth.
The nonfarm employment estimates presented in Table 7
are generated from a survey of business firms. Total nonfarm employment is
estimated to have increased by a surprising 7.6 percent from last year. The
only sectors who did not expand were manufacturing and trade. Even though
manufacturing employment was unchanged, this too represents good news for
the area. For a number of periods in a row, manufacturing experienced
substantial declines in employment. Thus, it is good news to see the
employment level in this sector stabilize. All the other sectors in Table 7
experienced healthy gains.
Retailer confidence (Table 8) in the Stevens Point
area was subdued in first quarter. When the survey group of merchants was
asked about total sales and how store traffic compared to the previous year
they felt that both were modestly below last year’s pace. The survey group
was much more optimistic about future sales and traffic. They indicated
that matters would improve over last year’s totals. Lastly, the survey
group was generally more upbeat about the future than they were in December
2006.
The help wanted advertising index (Table 9) for the
Stevens Point-Plover area shows an increase of 62 to 69 or an 11 percent
expansion in job vacancies. Even though the help wanted index only captures
a small portion of the available job openings in the area, it is nonetheless
a very good barometer of the future direction of the area’s unemployment
rate.
Table 10 and Table 11 give us
insight into the level of family financial distress in our county. New
public assistance applications, on a monthly average basis, were, for all
intents and purposes, unchanged from a year ago. Meanwhile, the total
caseload figure rose by 16.8 percent over the past twelve months. This
figure indicates that the last twelve months have been especially difficult
for some area residents. New unemployment claims on a weekly average basis
in Portage County contracted slightly from 229 to 223 or by 2.8 percent. In
addition, total unemployment claims rose by 0.9 percent over the year.
Thus, the unemployment claims data suggest a degree of stability on the
employment front.
Residential construction figures are given in Table 12.
The number of new permits issued fell by a substantial 42.4 percent, and the
estimated value of this activity fell from $6.8 million to $5.0 million over
the past year. This represents a substantial decline of 26.0 percent.
Better news comes from alteration activity figures. The number of permits
issued rose from 92 to 125 or by 35.9 percent since first quarter 2006. Of
additional interest, the value of the alterations rose sharply from $776
thousand to $1.8 million.
Table 13 gives us nonresidential construction figures
without percentage changes. This is due to the fact that this type of
activity tends to be dominated by large projects. Thus, the percentages can
change dramatically from period to period. The number of permits issued was
9 and they had an estimated value of $9.2 million in first quarter 2007.
During the same time frame the number of business alteration permits was 44
and was estimated to have a value of $2.6 million.
Figures 7 to 10 pertaining to Portage County’s employment level,
unemployment level, unemployment rate, and labor force are presented to
depict how these indicators have trended in the area from 2003 to first
quarter 2007. The reader will gain a greater appreciation of the overall
economic trends for Portage County.
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