Services and trade employment in Wood county increased by an estimated 1000 and 400 jobs, respectively, in the year over comparison (Table 7).  Likewise, construction added about 100 people and government added 500 over last year's levels.  Only manufacturing was estimated to have contracted from December 1998.  The CWERB estimates, namely with the Marshfield Index, that area employment rose by about 4.7 percent.

     Local merchants were decidedly upbeat about December sales activity indicating that sales were much higher than a year ago (Table 8).  In contrast, the amount of store traffic was judged to be at about the same level as it was in 1998.  The panel of local merchants also believes that sales and store traffic three months from now will be no higher than last year's totals.

     Help wanted advertising in the local area stood at 212 in December (Table 9), meaning that there are 2.1 jobs being advertised for each one in the base year.  This barometer of local labor market conditions suggests that demand is strong for qualified workers.  The U.S. index in November actually fell from 91 to 85 over the same period.

     The number of new public assistance claims climbed ever so slightly in 4th Quarter 1999 (Table 10).  Total caseload crept upwards from 2,463 to 2,501 or 1.5 percent in Wood county.  Another gauge of local family financial distress is unemployment claim data for the county.  New claims on a weekly average basis declined by 4.3 percent (Table 11).  In addition, total claims tumbled by 11 percent.  Thus, there has been a significant decline in the number of unemployment claims in our county.

     Residential construction in the Marshfield area was very strong during the 4th Quarter (Table 12).  Residential permits issued increased by 40 percent and the estimated value of the new construction climbed by 28 percent.  The number of housing units to be constructed was up by 60 percent over a year ago.  Meanwhile, the number of residential alteration permits fell by 32 percent.  However, the value of the alteration activity in the 4th Quarter rose by 38 percent.  Thus, while the total number of alterations went down, the ones that did take place were fairly expensive in nature.

     The volatile nonresidential construction sector is presented, as always, without percentage change (Table 13).  The number of projects totaled 11 and they had an estimated value of nearly $13 million.  This represents a very good level of activity for the local area.  Business alteration permits were also significantly higher than last year's figure.  The 16 projects were valued at about $2.1 million.

     Due to the merger activity in the local market, financial statistics in Table 14 are only for 4th Quarter 1999.  By 3rd Quarter 2000, comparability will be restored and once again we will be able to make year over comparisons.  Our sample in the Marshfield area shows deposits at $191 million and the amount of lending to be $169 million in the 4th Quarter.

     Clark county economic data are presented in Table 15 and Table 16.  Industrial sector employment in Table 15 shows that all sectors, except for services, experienced employment growth: manufacturing (4.5 percent), trade (1.7 percent), construction (13.6 percent), and government employment (0.7 percent).  The Clark county unemployment rate rose in 4th Quarter to 5.8 percent.  However, total employment increased by 2.2 percent over the period.  The increase in the unemployment rate can be accounted for by the sharp 3.7 percent increase in the labor force.  In other words, the increase in the number of people seeking jobs exceeded the availability.