Central Wisconsin 

     The Central Wisconsin area economy moved forward in Fourth Quarter, albeit at a modest pace. Unemployment rates were generally lower in the counties and their total employment expanded by approximately 1.8 percent. Nonfarm industrial sector employment, however, expanded at a slightly more brisk 2.0 percent rate. Area business executives believe that local conditions are not as strong as they were in the previous quarter. Moreover, this group is almost neutral with regard to future conditions at the state, local. and industry levels. 

     Seasonally unadjusted unemployment rates for Central Wisconsin are given in Table 2. Portage, Marathon, and Wood county unemployment rates once again fell on a year over comparison basis. The unemployment rates were quite low for Fourth Quarter, 4.0 percent in Portage. 3.9 percent in Marathon, and 3.1 percent in Wood. The labor force weighted unemployment rate for the Central Wisconsin region fell from 4.8 percent to 3.7 percent over the year. In sum, the rates in our area are well below the 5.2 percent registered for the nation. 

     Table 3 shows total employment figures for Fourth Quarter. Marathon and Wood add 1,400 and 1,200 people respectively to their payrolls. However, the Portage county employment situation showed little change as k is estimated that employment contracted by 100. Central Wisconsin payroll expanded from 137.8 to 140.1 thousand jobs, or a modest 1.8 percent. The state meanwhile added 2.4 percent more jobs and the nation just 0.3 percent more since last year. 

       Central Wisconsin industrial sector employment and economy continue to plug along (Table 4). Manufacturing and services grew by 1,000 and 1,100 positions each from last year in the three‑county area. Trade and government payrolls are estimated to have expanded by an even lesser degree, 500 and 100 jobs respectively. Constriction, was slightly down losing about 100. In sum, all sectors combined expanded from 132.1 to 134.7 thousand or‑2.0 percent from Fourth Quarter 1994. Modest steady growth is the best way to characterize the situation. 

     Another measure of local economic conditions is the amount of retail activity taking place in an area.  The data in Table 5 are lagged so that the activity associated with Fourth Quarter are most likely to be incorporated in the numbers.  Marathon County sales tax distributions rose by nearly 5.0 percent from last year suggesting a modestly expanding economy when inflation is taken into consideration.  No data are available for Wood County; however, Portage experienced an 11.4 percent gain in activity.

     Central Wisconsin service sector has expanded from approximately 37.5 thousand to 47.5 thousand over the past five years (Table 5A). During the same period manufacturing grew from 30.0 thousand to about 32.5 thousand and trade expanded from 27.5 thousand to 32.0 thousand (Table 5B). Thus, Table 5 A clearly shows the transformation of our three‑county economy. Moreover, construction and government employment are little changed over the period. 

     A notable drop in the business confidence index occurred for Central Wisconsin. Table 6 shows that our panel of regional business executives viewed recent changes at the national and local level in a somewhat unfavorable light. Further, when asked to forecast future economic conditions at the national, local, and industry levels they fait that matters will not change that much over the next three months. Of particular interest is the fact their level of optimism fell from September.