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A summary of this section is as follows: Total employment is about 400
positions higher than a year ago; retailer confidence is above last year's
marks; help wanted advertising has improved; public assistance claims are
higher this year compared to last; total unemployment claims have fallen;
residential construction is well above the pace of a year ago; and
nonresidential construction continues to make headway.
Total nonfarm employment estimates are based on a state of Wisconsin survey of
business firms (Table 7). Overall nonfarm employment
has risen from 35.4 to 35.8 thousand over the past twelve months a gain of
approximately 1.1 percent. The sectors of construction and natural resources,
financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and information and business
services are each estimated to have gained one hundred jobs. Meanwhile, the
education and health services sector is thought to have gained about 200
positions over the course of the year. Manufacturing, trade, transportation
and utilities, and government employment levels were unchanged over the
period.
Retailer confidence is presented in Table 8. The CWERB
survey of local merchants shows that retailers believe that total sales and
traffic were slightly above the levels of 2004. When they were asked to
forecast the future, they said sales and store traffic would be measurably
higher than last year. Thus, overall a higher degree of optimism is now being
expressed by this group than in June of this year.
A barometer of local labor conditions is given in Table 9.
Help wanted advertising fell from 84 to 76 over the past twelve months. This indicates that some
deterioration has taken place in the
area employment situation. Nationally the index fell over the same period.
Even though help wanted advertising only captures a small percent of the total
number of available employment opportunities, economists have found this a
useful gauge of labor markets conditions.
An important measure of local family financial conditions is presented in
Table 10. New public assistance claims in Portage
County on a monthly basis rose from 226 to 253 of by 12 percent. Likewise,
the total caseload figure climbed from 4,445 to 4,957 for an 11.5 percent
increase. Another measure of family financial conditions is unemployment
claims. New claims on a weekly average basis were virtually unchanged from
one year ago. Total claims, however, dropped from 1,072 to 948, a decline of
about 12 percent.
Good news comes from the residential construction figures for our area
(Table 11). Residential construction remained at a
high level, 52 to be exact. The estimated value of this building activity was
estimated to be $11 million, a 21.7 percent jump from a year ago. Also, the
number of new housing units increased from 54 to 75 or by nearly 39 percent.
The number of alteration permits continues to be at a high level, 256. The
estimated value of this activity was $2.1 million or about 18 percent higher
than in third quarter 2004. Construction activity is another important
barometer of future economic activity.
Nonresidential construction is presented without percentage changes
(Table 12). This type of activity tends to be very
volatile from period to period and can experience huge swings in the reported
dollar amount. The number of new permits issued was 6 and they had an
estimated value of $1.7 million. The number of alteration permits was 47 and
their value was listed as $1.6 million. |
