The Central Wisconsin area economy has held up quite well to the challenges of the national recession. So far at least, the situation seems to suggest that the three counties are doing much better than some other parts of the country, for example California and New England. The unemployment rate, while rising substantially in all three counties, still remains lower than the national rate. Further, the employment picture also appears to be much better as evidenced by a gain of approximately 3 percent in total employment for Central Wisconsin. Likewise, nonfarm employment managed to increase by about 2.0 percent and key industries gained to the tune of about 1.7 percent. 

     Perhaps what is even more telling is that regional business leaders tell the CWERB that the local economy has not deteriorated noticeably over the past twelve months. And a majority of these executives expect marked improvement in the quarters ahead. 

     The unemployment rates for the area, state, and nation are given in Table 2. The unemployment rates for all reporting levels are substantially higher than last year's pre-recession rates. The unemployment rate now stands at 5.6 percent for Central Wisconsin which is slightly higher than the state rate of 5.4 percent but well below the national unemployment rate of 6.9 percent. The unemployment rate in the three county area was remarkably uniform with only 0.4 percent separating the counties. 

     Total employment is given in Table 3. The three counties of Central Wisconsin all posted gains despite the effects of the national recession. It should be noted that the original Portage County employment figures are likely to be revised in the year ahead. Therefore in order to better reflect the current situation, the original employment estimates have been adjusted by the CWERB. For Central Wisconsin employment is estimated to have increased by 4000 since last June for a 3 percent gain. This rate of job expansion has clearly outpaced that of the state and nation. 

     Nonfarm employment changes are listed in Table 4. Services, trade, and government employment were 3.3 percent, 1.4 percent, and 6.0 percent higher than a year ago. Manufacturing was down by a slight 0.6 percent while construction remained unchanged from twelve months ago. Overall employment expanded by 2400 positions or by approximately 2.0 percent and now stands at 121.9 thousand as compared to 119.5 thousand in June 1990. 

     Table 5 focuses on the key sector industries of our Central Wisconsin region. Paper products and finance, insurance, and real estate both posted gains. Paper products payrolls rose by about 100 positions or 1.0 percent and F.I.R.E. added approximately 600 jobs. The other two major categories (lumber and wood products, and food processing) experienced slight contractions in employment with each seeing a drop of about 100 jobs. Overall these key industries gained a net of 500 positions or an increase of 1.7 percent from last year. 

     Each quarter the CWERB interviews a panel of regional business executives to get input on how the economy is performing (Table 6). For second quarter 1991 the consensus is that the national economy has improved over the past three months and that the local economies are slightly less robust than one year ago. Looking forward to the next quarter, most expressed optimism that the national and local economies as well as their particular industries would see better times.