Wisconsin Ranks 33rd In Private-Sector Job Growth, Report Finds

Wisconsin ranked 33rd in the nation in private-sector job growth last year, based on the latest job numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Wisconsin added jobs at a rate of about 1.3 percent from March of 2013 to March of 2014. By comparison, private-sector jobs grew by 2.1 percent nationwide. Using the same metric, Wisconsin finished behind all but Illinois and Minnesota among Midwest states. The bigger picture is more grim: Looking back three years to March of 2011, Wisconsin ranked 35th in the nation and last in the Midwest.

These job numbers come from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which economists say is the most accurate measure of job growth. Because they’re so thorough, they take a long time to get released.

Marquette University Economics Professor Abdur Chowdhury said there’s enough data to say with certainty that the state did not see significant growth in the past few years. He said that state government deserves some of the blame for focusing too many resources on trying to grow manufacturing.

“A better policy would have been if we had tried to diversify the Wisconsin economy,” said Chowdhury. “I think that would have given us much better return both in terms of value added, also in terms of job creation.”

Politically speaking, Marquette University Political Science Professor Charles Franklin said the numbers don’t change much in the race for governor between Gov. Scott Walker and Democratic challenger Mary Burke.

“I think what it does is it reinforces the messages that we’ve already been seeing in the campaign,” said Franklin.

He noted, for example, that Burke has been saying that Wisconsin has been last in the Midwest in job creation over the long-term, which is substantiated with the latest three-year totals.

The state also released less-accurate monthly job estimates on Thursday. They showed Wisconsin’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.6 percent in August, though employers also shed 4,300 private-sector jobs.

Overall, the running job count for Walker’s administration remains just above the 100,000 jobs mark, a statistic he frequently mentions in his campaign ads. Specifically, through August, the state has added 100,613 jobs since Walker took office. Walker campaigned in 2010 on a promise to help the state add 250,000 jobs in his first term.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with information from the 4:30 p.m. news broadcast.