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The unemployment rates are
generally lower in Central Wisconsin compared to a year ago.
In addition, total employment,
whether measured by the survey of households or measured from employer
payroll records, indicates an expansion in the number of jobs.
Sales tax collections, however,
were well off the pace of a year ago.
This is especially true if the
numbers are adjusted for inflation.
Finally, regional business
executives believe the economy is much weaker than it was a year ago.
The CWERB Table 2 shows that unemployment rates
for second quarter 2008 were lower than in second quarter 2007.
The unemployment rate fell from 4.9 to 4.8 percent in Marathon
County, from 5.3 to 5.1 percent in Portage County, and 6.1 to 5.6 percent in
Wood County. This comes as a
pleasant surprise. Moreover,
Wisconsin’s unemployment rate contracted from 5.3 to 4.9 percent.
The national unemployment rate, however, rose sharply from 4.7 to 5.7
percent. It is clear that the
local area economy has held up well when compared to the nation.
Additional good news comes from Table 3.
Total employment in Central Wisconsin is estimated to have grown from
149.8 to 150.3 thousand over the past twelve months, a small, but
respectable 0.3 percent change.
Given the weakness of the national economy any gains in employment are to be
appreciated. From second quarter
of last year Wisconsin added about 14 thousand people to its payrolls,
meanwhile the U.S. lost approximately 308 thousand jobs.
The state of Wisconsin also estimates employment by collecting data from
business establishments and government units.
Over the past twelve months nonfarm employment in Central Wisconsin
grew by a small but positive 0.3 percent (Table
4). Sectors of the economy experiencing growth were
financial activities, education & health services, leisure & hospitality,
and information & business services.
However, other sectors like construction & natural resources,
manufacturing, trade, transportation & utilities, and total government lost
employment.
County sales tax data are used to judge the strength of the local
economic scene. Collections in
Portage County declined by approximately 7.9 percent since second quarter
2007 (Table 5).
Likewise Wood County sales tax collections are estimated to have
declined by 9.5 percent for the period.
Marathon County collections were up by a scant 0.6 percent.
Given that the inflation rate for the past twelve months was 5.0 percent,
the real inflation adjusted collections for all three counties are much
weaker than what they first appear.
In sum, retail economic activity may have been fairly weak when
compared to a year ago.
The CWERB survey of business executives is presented in
Table 6.
This group believes that recent changes in economic conditions, whether of
the national or local level, have deteriorated from a year ago.
They were somewhat more upbeat about future economic conditions at
the nation level, local level, and for their particular industry.
In other words they felt that economic matters would not become
appreciably worse and that the economy was beginning to stabilize.
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