The economic results for second quarter for Wood County are as follows:  Wood County industrial sector employment fell by 0.2 percent; local merchants believe that store traffic and sales are slightly off the pace of a year ago; help wanted advertising is marginally lower than a year ago; local family financial distress has remained stable over the past twelve months; generally speaking construction activity in the area was weaker than in past periods; and Clark County data suggests it is experiencing significant employment growth. 

     Industrial sector employment is presented in Table 7.  Total nonfarm employment contracted by 100 positions or by about 0.2 percent from a year ago.  The downturn in employment can be contributed to the 800 jobs lost in manufacturing and the 400 jobs lost in trade.  If not for those sectors overall employment would have risen by 1,100 positions in Wood County.  Of the seven other sectors listed in Table 7, six experienced job growth and one showed no change in its payrolls.  The sector showing no change was the government sector. 

      The CWERB surveys area merchants to determine the health of the retail sector (Table 8).  Our survey group felt that total sales and store traffic were slightly behind the levels of a year ago.  This data corresponds to the downturn in employment in the trade sector.  When the survey group was asked to evaluate future economic conditions, they indicated that the retail situation would change little in the next three months in Wood County.

      The amount of help wanted advertising is a barometer of local labor market conditions (Table 9).  Even though help wanted advertising only captures a small percent of the total employment opportunities in an area, it is nonetheless a good indicator of the overall health and direction of the local labor market.  The help wanted index for Marshfield shows that advertising is slightly off the pace of a year ago.  The same was true for the U.S.

      Table 10 and Table 11 are measures of local family financial distress.  Table 10 shows that public assistance claims on a monthly average basis rose ever so slightly from 76 to 79.  Meanwhile, new employment claims on a weekly average basis fell from 236 to 212, a 10.2 percent decline.  In addition total unemployment claims rose from 1,291 to 1,339, increasing by 3.7 percent.  From information in Tables 10 and 11, it appears that the level of local family financial distress remains fairly stable from a year ago. 

      Residential construction in the Marshfield area shows that building activity was very slow (Table 12).  The value of the construction was $1.07 million and represents 7 new units.  There was also a large plunge in the number of alteration permits, from 46 to just 5.  The value of alteration activity in the area fell from $403 thousand to $42 thousand over the course of the year. 

      Nonresidential construction in the area is presented without percentage changes (Table 13).  This activity tends to be large singular events that can dramatically swing the percentage changes from period to period.  There was only one project during the second quarter and its estimated value was just $160 thousand.  The number of nonresidential alteration permits reached 19 in the quarter and the estimated value of the activities was $11.7 million.

     The economic information presented in  Table 14 and Table 15 is for Clark County.  Clark County is an important market area for Marshfield area businesses.  Highlights of Tables 14 and 15 are as follows.  Total nonfarm employment expanded by a healthy 5.5 percent during the year and the total number of people employed rose by 2.0 percent.  Even though the unemployment rate rose to 5.4 percent the cause can be traced to a growing labor force relative to the number of available job openings.