Wisconsin jobs up and unemployment down in August

We got another Wisconsin jobs report this week discussing the employment market in August. And it looks like things went very well in our state last month.

Employment – There were 3,046,200 people employed in Wisconsin, up 9,300 over the month and up 36,900 over the year.
• Labor Force – The state’s labor force participation increased to 64.7% which is 3.1 percentage points above the national rate of 61.6%.
• Nonfarm Jobs – The total nonfarm jobs in the state were 3,057,300, an increase of 11,800 over last month.
• Unemployment – The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked down to 3.2%, which is 0.9 percentage points below the national unemployment rate of 4.1%.

3.2% is the lowest unemployment rate Wisconsin has had in 2026, and the increase in our state’s participation rate over the last year has happening as the country continues to have its percentage of people working go down.

On the payrolls side, the 9,300 additional jobs continued a string of good jobs reports for our state in the middle of this year, and July's gain was revised by another 2,600. That comes after recent benchmark estimates that indicate Wisconsin held level for jobs in 2025 and early 2026, instead of losing jobs.

Yes, 2/3 of the additional 9,300 jobs were in local government and likely reflect new hires by public schools ahead of the start of the 26-27 school year (the US had an increase in these jobs of 41,900 in the same month, and likely for the same reason). But there were other good numbers in the Wisconsin jobs report, including the construction sector continuing its boom in our state, and another small increase in manufacturing jobs.

Pretty good spot to be in, and the good jobs numbers maybe help explain how Wisconsin exceeded revenue estimates by nearly $451 million. It's helped us withstand the less favorable trends in the overall US economy.

Can you imgaine how good a position we'd be in if we used those better revenues to lower property taxes for Wisconsin homeowners and make it easier for communities and public schools to pay for their needed services while increasing our quality of life? And encouraged investments that keep our construction boom sustainable and not be endangered by the inevitable popping of the AI Bubble? Just a thought.