Same story in Wis job market - less unemployment and fewer jobs

Another month, and another Wisconsin jobs report that results in two very different interpretations, depending on which one you choose.

The first interpretation centers on one specific statistic.

NEW from ⁦@WIWorkforce⁩ — Wisconsin’s unemployment rate hit a record low 2.8% in April pic.twitter.com/wPQrKgpeZa

— Mark Sommerhauser (@msommerhauser) May 16, 2019

Record Low Unemployment in April 2019!

It's working. No need to raise taxes. pic.twitter.com/WamjVKX1vB

— Van Wanggaard (@Vanwanggaard) May 16, 2019

Hold that second tweet in mind as you read the rest of this post.

The unemployment rate did drop in April in Wisconsin. However, much like with the April decrease in the US unemployment rate, it’s not because many more people say they are working.

Wisconsin household survey, April 2019
Labor Force -1,000
Employed +600
Unemployed -1,600

This continues a trend of Wisconsin’s shrinking labor force, now down 14,600 over the last 12 months. Which is the real reason behind Wisconsin’s unemployment rate declining from 3.0% to 2.8% in that time, as the “employed” figure is actually 7,700 lower than this time last year.

But that deceptively low unemployment rate isn’t the worst part of the April jobs report. This part is.

Place of Work Data: Wisconsin added 17,000 private-sector jobs from April 2018 to April 2019, while adding 15,100 total non-farm jobs over the same time-period. Wisconsin private-sector employment and total non-farm employment decreased 3,900 and 3,100 from March 2019 to April 2019 respectively.

Oops. And March’s totals were revised down by 2,300 jobs overall and 1,900 in the private sector, making for a total loss of 5,800 private sector jobs and 5,400 jobs overall from what we had in the last jobs report.

Some of this decline seems to be weather-related (you may recall that mid-April was still crappy in much of the state). For example, construction had a seasonally-adjusted drop of 2,400 jobs and a downward revision of 1,100, but that’s a reflection of lower-than-normal seasonal hiring over fewer actual workers. However, it doesn’t change the fact that jobs in Wisconsin generally flatlined in 2018, and has fallen in each of the last 3 months, with a combined loss of 10,900 total jobs.

And despite the GOpper-ganda that Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce tries to sell, manufacturing employment continues to hurt in our state. 500 more jobs were lost in that sector April, March was revised down by another 500, and 1,900 jobs in manufacturing has been lost in 2019 so far. Which now means manufacturing jobs in the US have grown twice as fast as they have in Wisconsin since the end of 2015.

But GOPs like Van Wangaard claim we need to keep blowing over $500 million on a tax cut to “job-creating” manufacturers over these next 2 years instead of adequately fixing our roads and schools? REALLY?

This latest bad jobs report reiterates the failures we’ve seen over the entre Age of Fitzwalkerstan, and that things are getting worse today under these policies. And yet the Republicans in the gerrymandered Legislature are going to try to keep us on the same declining path through the budget debate that’ll be going on over the coming weeks. Scott Walker was fired for a reason this November, and it’s infuriating that WisGOP wants to continue this idiot’s legacy after he’s gone.


Even worse, the WisGOPs are going to try to convince voters that their lousy record was really a good one, and had nothing to do with 8 straight years of a solid US recovery. Even more cynically, WisGOP will claim the added suckiness that becomes apparent in the coming months will somehow be the fault of the new Democratic Governor who’s trying to end these failing policies.