Wisconsin Ranked 32nd Nationally In Job Growth, According To BLS Survey

Wisconsin is ranked 32nd in the nation and last among its Midwestern neighbors in terms of job growth, according to a national survey of employers.

Wisconsin’s job growth was around 1.5 percent from June of 2013 to June of this year, compared to a national rate of 2.3 percent. The data comes from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, considered by many economists to be the “gold standard” of jobs metrics.

Laura Dresser, a labor economist with the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, said that Wisconsin is lagging other states in the creation of low-wage service jobs.

“What’s clear is that we have slow growth in the service sector, especially food services, leisure, hospitality and retail,” she said. “So it’s slow growth in low-wage jobs that has been much more rapid in other parts of the country.”

Dresser said that Wisconsin’s manufacturing growth did beat the national rate, but that it’s still far from where it was before the recession hit.