Job growth takes a breather in Wisconsin in October

Got a new Wisconsin jobs report for October, and it wasn't so great.

Place of Residence Data: Wisconsin's labor force participation rate declined to 65.3% in October from 65.6% in September, but was still 3.1 percentage points higher than the national rate of 62.2%. Wisconsin's unemployment rate in October was 3.3 percent, 0.4% below the national rate of 3.7%.

• Place of Work Data: Over the year, Wisconsin added 58,800 total nonfarm jobs and 54,600 private sector jobs. From September to October 2022, Wisconsin private sector jobs decreased by 1,600 and total nonfarm jobs declined by 2,200.

Notice how the loss of jobs in October was buried at the end of that? Not great in a month when the country as a whole added 261,000. But after Wisconsin added a (revised) 11,000 private sector jobs in September, I suppose we would expect some reversion to the norm.

But the divergence between the household survey (that determines the unemployment part of the report) and the payrolls survey (which is the “jobs change” part) continued in October in Wisconsin, and there is a major difference between the two since May.

Given that new weekly unemployment claims are still running 2,000-3,000 below the same time the year before, and total unemployment claims being just above half of the levels of October 2021, I’m inclined to buy the payroll increase over the drop in “employed” Wisconsinites. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be aware that we could be a “maxed out” state with low population growth, and do policy with that in mind.

I’ll note that Wisconsin’s goods producers kept hiring in October, with the construction and manufacturing sectors each adding 1,800 jobs last month. And professional/science/technical services went up by 2,400, and 11,600 jobs since October 2021. Those are well-paying jobs and a good sign for the state’s economy.

But the big loser in this jobs report gives a red flag beyond just one bad month. Health care/social assistance shed 4,200 jobs in Wisconsin in October, in a month when the US added more than 71,000 jobs in the same areas. We’re also down 1,200 jobs in that sector in the last year, and it’s something we likely should look more into, given the caregiver and nursing shortages that we frequently hear about in our local news sources.

This is the challenge that I see in general for the next state budget and our state's future economy in general. We seem to be leveling off on what we can do, after strong job growth of the last 2 years. Now we need to find ways to get people to want to come here, and I would hope that the prospect of 4 more years of Tony Evers in office would have regressive WisGOPs back off of some of the stupid garbage that repels people from wanting to relocate (or stay in) Wisconsin.

I'm not expecting that, mind you. But it would be a wise thing to do if we want to improve on what are already good times in Wisconsin, and improve our economic capacity.