The economic results for Third Quarter were positive for the Wood county- Marshfield area.  The county's unemployment rate stands at just 2.0 percent.  Further, even in this time of tight labor market conditions, total employment expanded by 2.0 percent.  In general, the area continues to enjoy steady and modest growth.

Industrial sector employment in Wood county grew by 1,500 positions or 3.4 percent from last year (Table 7).  Individually the services sector added 800 people and the trade sector 200 people over the past twelve months.  Government is said to have added about 500 positions over the year.  Meanwhile, manufacturing and construction payrolls were unchanged.  Closer to home the Marshfield Employment Index rose by 3.6 percent.  This suggests that local employment expanded in the area at that aforementioned rate.

Retailer confidence in Marshfield remains virtually unchanged from June (Table 8).  When local merchants were asked about store sales and traffic they felt the level of activity was about the same as one year ago.  Along similar lines this group expects little change in store traffic and sales three months from now as compared to last year.  Thus, the retail scene in Marshfield appears to be fairly stable at this juncture in time.

Help wanted advertising rose by about 30 points or 12 percent since Third Quarter 1998 (Table 9).  This rise represents the growing demand of business firms locally and throughout the state to find qualified workers.  Thus, the index encompasses firms that are searching in the Marshfield area for workers.  This bodes well for local residents who are seeking employment.  For the U.S., however, the help wanted index fell from 92 to 87.  So Wisconsin's labor market conditions seem somewhat better than the rest of the nation, i.e., high job demand.

A very important measure of local family financial distress is public assistance claims data (Table 10).  For the Third Quarter 1999 the total caseload figure was unchanged.  As of Third Quarter 1999 there were 2,476 cases reported for Wood county.  The caseload figure included aid for TANF, MA, and food stamps.  Another measure of local financial conditions is unemployment claims data in the area (Table 11).  New claims were almost unchanged from last year, 51 versus 52.  The same can be said for total claims changing only from 155 to 168 over the past twelve months.

Residential construction in the area took off in Third Quarter 1999 (Table 12).  The number of permits increased from 6 to 14 and their estimated value went from $1.0 million to $1.7 million over the course of the year.  Moreover, the number of housing units rose from 6 to 17 or 183 percent over 1998.  The only negative news comes from residential alteration permits issued.  There the number fell from 50 to 41 and as one would guess, the value of the alterations declined from $452.9 thousand to $238.2 thousand over the year.

More good news can be reported in the category of nonresidential construction (Table 13).  New permits reached 16 and they had an estimated value of $4.7 million.  Additionally, the number of business alteration permits, while only 7, represented $1.3 million worth of local activity.  As always, percentage changes are not given due to the inherent volatility of these numbers.

Table 14 displays the financial statistics from our sample of area institutions.  The amount of bank deposits declined slightly from last year, down by about 3.0 percentage points.  The lending activity in the area was at about the same level as one year ago.  Lending rose form $165.8 to $166.00 million or by about 0.1 percent in the sample.

Table 15 and Table 16 present economic data on Clark county.  Clark represents an important trade area for Marshfield area businesses.  Some highlights of the Clark data include: industrial sector employment and total employment are significantly higher than a year ago; the unemployment rate is at a very low 2.3 percent and the labor force is estimated to have grown by about 1.0 percent over the course of the year.