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A brief summary of this quarter's
results is as follows. Nonfarm employment fell from 43.2 to 43.1 thousand over
the past twelve months. Retailers were less upbeat than usual about store
traffic and sales. On a brighter note help wanted advertising has increased
over the year and nonresidential construction was strong during the fourth
quarter. Lastly, the Clark County economy appears to have expanded over the
course of the year. A more in depth analysis of the results is contained in the
remainder of the report.
Employment numbers based on a state
survey of Wood County business firms are given in Table 7.
Total nonfarm employment is estimated to have contracted by 0.2 percent over the
year. The manufacturing sector continues to be the sector that has most
influenced this contraction. Since fourth quarter last year the manufacturing
sector is estimated to have lost 400 positions. In contrast the transportation,
education and health services, and leisure and hospitality sectors continued to
add employees to their respective payrolls.
Table 8
presents the retail confidence survey for fourth quarter. Our survey group
believes that store traffic and sales were lower than a year ago. The group
also believes that expected sales and store traffic will be at about the same
levels as last year. In general, the survey group expressed less optimism in
December when compared to the September time frame. The results of this survey
are in contradiction to the sales tax numbers for the county which show a
healthy amount of retail growth taking place.
Help wanted advertising is a
barometer of local labor market conditions
(Table 9). During fourth quarter, the Marshfield index
rose from 56 to 67, a 19.6 percent increase in the amount of advertising. This
bodes well for future employment opportunities for area residents. The national
index rose slightly over the same period increasing from 36 to 39.
There are several measures of local
family financial distress in this part of the report. Public assistance claims
on a monthly average basis for Wood County decreased from 92 to 91 (Table
10). Thus, for all intent and purpose there was no change in this measure.
Data on unemployment claims for Wood County are given in
Table 11. The number of new unemployment claims on a weekly average basis
increased slightly from 279 to 286, or 2.5 percent. Likewise, the number of
total claims climbed from 1,247 to 1,290 or by 3.4 percent. In sum, it appears
that there has been a modest increase in the level of family financial distress
in Wood County.
Residential construction activity is
presented in Table 12. The number of new permits
declined from 18 to 4 over the year. The associated estimated value of the
construction activity declined from $4.1 million to $0.8 million. Similarly,
the number of units built contracted from 71 to 4. Better news comes from
alteration activity. The number of residential permits issued rose from 86 to
100. The associated value of this alteration activity increased from $527
thousand to $854 thousand.
The nonresidential construction
activity in Marshfield for fourth quarter was quite strong (Table
13). The number of permits issued was 9 and they had an estimated value of
$12.7 million. The number of alteration permits was 11 and they had a healthy
valuation of $1.5 million. Thus, there has been a lot of building activity and
this will eventually lead to an increase in the amount of physical capital in
the Marshfield area.
Tables 14 and 15 present Clark
County economic data. Clark County is an important market for Marshfield area
businesses. Clark County industrial sector numbers are given in
Table 14. Total nonfarm employment is estimated to have
risen by about 2 percent from last year. Table 15 shows
that Clark County total employment based on a state conducted survey of
households is estimated to have risen by about 7.0 percent. Further, the
unemployment rate has contracted form 6.4 percent to 5.3 percent over the course
of this past year. |
