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The
Marshfield
area economy displayed telltale signs of slowing during 4th
quarter 1989. Similarly, Central Wisconsin and the United States
have experienced a downturn in activity. However, the past four
years for all of the aforementioned areas can be characterized
as a period of solid economic growth. The Central Wisconsin
region can take pride in what has been accomplished since the
dark days of the early 1980s. Whether or not this pause in
expansion is temporary or the beginning of a significant trend
will be determined by forces originating outside the region and
state.
Wood County
nonfarm employment growth was a scant .2 percent or 80 positions
during 4th quarter 1989, Table 7.
Employment growth in the county was hard to come by with three
of the five major industrial sectors experiencing a decline from
last year. A similar phenomenon occurred in the other two
Central Wisconsin counties. Services and government employment were the
only sectors to post a gain. The
Marshfield
employment index indicates that local employment declined by
approximately 2 percent when compared to December 1988. Not
since 4th quarter 1985 has the index reported a contraction in
employment.
Merchants remain generally
optimistic when queried about events in the very important
retail sector, Table 8. When the retailers
were asked about current store sales and traffic, they felt that
matters had improved from last year. Further, this panel was
even more upbeat when the focus turned to future conditions.
They believe that store traffic and sales will most definitely
be stronger in the months ahead when contrasted with the year
before.
The help wanted advertising index
for
Marshfield declined for the second consecutive quarter.
Table 9 shows that the index fell from 190
to 175 or nearly 8 percent. The
U.S.
index also contracted by a similar margin. A declining help
wanted index signals a slowing in job generation. However, to
keep things in proper perspective, there are still 1 3/4 jobs
being advertised for every one job in December 1980.
Good news is reported in
Table 10 and
Table
11. The financial condition of local families and their level
of financial distress are gauged by the data in these tables.
Public assistance claims, both new and total, were down from
last year. The monthly average for new applications fell from 34
to 26 and the monthly average for total claims dropped from 624
to 575, a decline of approximately 8 percent. The weekly average
number of initial unemployment claims was 89, down from 106 the
previous year. Only the weekly average for total unemployment
claims showed an increase, rising by approximately 8 percent.
Thus, some important progress was made in the local economy.
A leading indicator and future
barometer of overall business activity is residential
construction, Table 12. The numbers for
4th quarter show a uniform contraction across all categories of
construction. A similar thing has taken place at the national
level and in the two other counties of
Central
Wisconsin. Percentage‑wise the biggest decline came in the
number of housing units, off by 62.5 percent. The cost of
borrowing, the satiation of demand, and oversupply are all cited
as contributing to the overall situation.
Table 13
presents the highly volatile and important nonresidential
construction data. Here too, the figures indicate a contraction
in economic activity. This corresponds to events in
Marathon and
Portage Counties and the nation as a whole. Thus, once again we
see some evidence that the economy, at all levels of
aggregation, has cooled down.
Financial statistics for the local
area are presented in Table 14. A measure
of local liquidity is the level of bank deposits. Here we see
that deposits in the sample have increased by about $7.5 million
over last year's figures. This is a positive sign for the
community and serves to indicate the potential of the local
area. Lending activity data gives a gauge of the degree and
extent to which economic activity occurred. The figures show
that approximately $15 million worth of new activity took place.
This means that local spending and or economic activity were up
substantially from last year and may have been stronger than
other measures have indicated.
Table 15 and
Table
16 contain economic statistics for
Clark County.
As an important market for local businesses, the health of this
area is of significance for Marshfield. Overall, the Clark
County situation shows much improvement from 1988 levels. The
key figure is the 1.0 thousand or 8.1 percent leap in total
employment. |
