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Both Marshfield
and Wood County experienced vigorous growth during
1987. The number of people employed in the county jumped by
2,400 and total nonfarm employment rose by nearly 6%. From the
retail sector comes news that sales were modestly better than
during 1986. Moreover, local financial distress was lower than a
year ago, and bank loan activity was brisk.
The prognosis for the Marshfield area is
positive, albeit with some degree of reservation. Local leading
economic variables suggest that growth should continue, but at a
slower rate than in 1987. Also the direction and condition of
the U. S. economy must be taken into
account when forecasting fQr the area. Regional business leaders
and merchants expressed optimism about their prospects.
Forecasting agencies have suggested that key central
Wisconsin industrjes are likely to remain profitable
in 1988. Help wanted advertising is higher than last year and
this should mean larger local payrolls. However, slow growth in
bank deposits, and a downturn in residential construction hint
at a lower rate of expansion during 1988.
Table 7 gives Wood
County
employment by sector. The period from December 1986 to December
1987 can be characterized as being very robust. Employment
change over this time period was substantial in almost all
categories. For example, manufacturing employment increased by
200 positions. Services led the expansion with a gain of 70/0 or
760 jobs. Trade, construction and government employment all
benefited from the surge in activity. Thus,
Wood
County payrolls grew by
nearly 5.9% or 1,980 positions. The Marshfield Employment Index
indicates that industrial employment in the local area has
rocketed upwards by approximately 5%. This is good news for the
local community. Furthermore, employment levels for fourth
quarter stand at decade highs for the county.
The Central Wisconsin Economic Research Bureau's retailer
confidence survey is presented in Table 8.
According to retailers, sales and store traffic were marginally
better than a year ago. Furthermore, sales and store traffic are
expected to continue to be somewhat improved over last year. It
does appear, though, that the slowing of the nation's economy
has had some impact at the local level. Evidence suggests that
the rate of growth in both sales and store traffic was stronger
during 1985-86 than during 1986-87. The help-wanted advertising
index is given in Table 9. The index now
stands 23% higher than a year ago. Moreover, in December 1987
there were 1.7 jobs being advertised for evey 1 job advertised
in 1980. When seasonality is filtered out of the data, we see
that the help-wanted advertising index has been steadily
increasing throughout 1987. The prognosis is for continued
expansion of payrolls into the early part of 1988.
Further evidence of local economic performance is displayed in
Table 10 and Table 11.
Public assistance numbers show that the economy has improved
since 1986. In addition, unemployment claims data clearly
indicate that there has been a reduction in local financial
distress. New claims are down by 15.9% and total claims have
contracted by approximately 20%. However, the numbers also
support the view that there are still individuals and families
in our community who, for a variety of reasons, have not been
able to participate in local economic prosperity.
Residential construction is a leading economic indicator. In
Table 12 data are presented for the Marshfield area. Generally
speaking, housing activity declined from the pace established in
1986. Moreover, residential construction growth rates remained
flat throughout the year. The fourth quarter numbers suggest
that matters slowed considerably. Only one category displayed
improvement, that being the number of housing units. The
downturn in residential construction may foretell a slowing in
the Marshfield economy.
Nonresidential construction was generally higher during the
latter part of 1987 (Table 13.) However,
data for the early part of the year indicated that
nonresidential activity overall was less in 1987 than in 1986.
It should be noted that due to the singular nature of this type
of construction, wide fluctuations in activity are frequently
observed. The major project during fourth quarter contributing
to the estimated value of new structures was the door core
building by Weyerhauser, which accounted for 90% of the value of
new nonresidential construction. The nonresidential alterations
category was also dominated by a single project. Ninety-two
percent of the total was associated with housing for the
magnetic resonator at the Marshfield Clinic.
Financial statistics in Table 14 show
that nominal bank deposits were almost unchanged from last year.
Thus the overall liquidity of the private sector is not
substantially higher than a year ago. This may translate into
less growth in the early part of 1988. Ban~ lending was
significantly higher than in 1986 suggesting that economic
conditions were fairly strong during the past year.
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