Jobs Added, but Unemployment is Up

Preliminary numbers show the state of Wisconsin added 7,800 jobs in August even as the unemployment rate rose slightly.

Out of the 7,800 jobs added according to a monthly survey of employers, 4,300 were added in the private sector. That was mostly due to strong job growth in the service industry, but it was tempered by job losses in manufacturing.

Even so, the unemployment rate rose from 7.3 percent to 7.5 percent in August. That number is calculated from a separate, smaller survey of Wisconsin households.

The Walker administration downplays the significance of the monthly numbers citing their wide margin of error and pointing instead to more detailed quarterly census figures. The most up-to-date version of those numbers runs through March of this year. They show job losses of more than 26,000 since Walker was first sworn into office.