Wisconsin loses most jobs in U.S. in March??!! But Feb revisions show a strong Q1

Got a new Wisconsin jobs report for March this week. And not all that great, to be honest.

Place of Residence Data: Wisconsin's March 2024 unemployment rate held steady at 3.0%. The labor force decreased 3,500 over the month, to 3,140,000. The number of people employed decreased 800 over the month, to 3,047,100. The number of unemployed people decreased 2,600 over the month, to 93,000.

• Place of Work Data: Total nonfarm jobs decreased 1,700 over the month and increased 22,700 over the year, to 3,034,400 in March. Private sector jobs decreased 2,900 over the month and increased 14,300 over the year to 2,623,400. Construction jobs grew by 3,100 jobs over the month, to a record high 143,900 jobs.

The construction boom in Wisconsin and nationwide is a story that isn’t told enough, as nearly 8,000 jobs has been added in that sector in our state since October, and over 15,000 have been added since the start of 2022.

But as good as construction was for hiring, manufacturing employment was just as bad for losses, down by 2,900 in March, and over 5,000 below our post-COVID peaks. It also gave away much of the recovery that sector had been seeing for jobs since bottoming out last September.

Add in the loss of 1,800 jobs in warehousing and 1,300 jobs lost in Health Care and Social Assistance in a month when 2 hospitals closed in the Eau Claire area, and you get a bad month for March. Remarkably, Wisconsin was 1 of only 6 states that lost jobs last month, with our total loss of 1,700 being the largest drop in jobs out of any of those 6 states.

In looking at the reports from other US states, Wisconsin’s loss of jobs in March is in complete contrast to what happened in the rest of the Midwest, which had strong job growth in all of the other states in our part of the country.

Job growth, March 2024
Ill. +12,700
Minn +11,000
Ohio +11,500
Mich +6,100
Iowa +4,400
Ind. +4.100
Wis. -1,700

But I also looked back and noticed that February's job gain was revised up by 5,200 jobs, for a newly reported increase of 8,400 jobs in that month, and a total of 14,300 for the first 2 months of 2024. So perhaps March just reflects a correction to what is a still a strong 1st Quarter of job growth in our state.

We also haven’t seen much of an increase in unemployment claims in the state during April. In fact, Wisconsin had a drop of nearly 1,800 initial unemployment claims last week, the second-largest drop in new claims in the US. Continuing claims in Wisconsin declined by more than 2,100 the week before, and reversed an unusual increase for March.

If claims continue to decline for the last 2 weeks of April, I’ll think that March’s disappointing jobs numbers was a blip likely triggered by the closings of hospitals in the Eau Claire area, and a snapback from big numbers in a warm February that pulled forward some work that usually ticks up in Spring.

So I'm not going to worry too much about whether Wisconsin's strong job growth is suddenly reversing, unless the bad trend continues in April and May. We just need to keep trying to attract talent and expand our capacities, as we aeren't likely to get much further below the 2.96% unemployment we had last month.