QCEW shows great job news is even better in US, Wisconsin

Last week featured updated numbers from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) for 1st quarter 2022. This "gold standard" report for Q1 also allows for the Bureau of Labor Statistics to check back on the monthly jobs report, and form the initial benchmarks through March 2022.

Those monthly jobs reports were already showing the strongest job growth in decades, but the BLS indicated that those numbers will be revised even higher.

Each year, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey employment estimates are benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment for the month of March. These counts are derived from state unemployment insurance (UI) tax records that nearly all employers are required to file. For National CES employment series, the annual benchmark revisions over the last 10 years have averaged plus or minus one-tenth of one percent of total nonfarm employment. The preliminary estimate of the benchmark revision indicates an upward adjustment to March 2022 total nonfarm employment of 462,000 (0.3 percent).

Further, private sector job growth is slated to be revised higher by 571,000, led by professional/business services (+270,000), transportation and warehousing (+151,600), and leisure/hospitality (+140,000).

via GIPHY

It wasn't a completely great report, as a couple of sectors had much lower benchmarks compared to previous reports – retail (-323,300) and government (-109,000). That wipes away nearly 3/4 of the reported job gains in retail between March 2021 and March 2022, and leaves it below the pre-COVID levels of February 2020. So we may need to do a bit of a re-set as to where that sector is and what might happen for the future, especially since the monthly jobs report says retail hasn't gained any jobs since March.

Wisconsin also had its QCEW figures for Q1 2022 in that report. And we are also set to have some positive revisions.

Wisconsin, QCEW vs monthly jobs report
March 2021 - March 2022
Monthly jobs report +2.12%
QCEW +2.93%

That translates into an additional 23,000 jobs. Which is all the more remarkable given that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was already down to 4.3% in March 2021, and we still kept gaining jobs at nearly twice the rate we did in the mid-2010s, when we also had unemployment rates around 4%.

What's also interesting is that despite job growth of nearly 3% over that 12-month period, it only places Wisconsin 39th in the country, which underscores how dramatic the job growth was for that first full year of the Biden Boom.

"But Jake, look at that big 12-month drop in 2020 and early 2021. Why are you talking up the recovery from that?" Valid point, but I'll add that if you go back to March 2020 (when the COVID lockdowns began), Wisconsin fared 2nd best in the Midwest, a credit to limiting the losses in 2020-2021, and in gaining back quite a bit of those losses in 2022.

Another good sign for Wisconsin is a sizable increase in wages, which helps explain how the state’s collections of individual income taxes could exceed already-high projections by more than $1 billion for the 2022 Fiscal Year. Wisconsin had a big jump in average weekly wages of 8.7%, which places Wisconsin at 15th in the country over the March 2021 - March 2022 time period.

That not only can reflect higher wages in current jobs, but also some Wisconsini>tes moving over into higher-paying positions. The dollar amount in Wisconsin’s weekly wages matched the strong increase in wages for the US as a whole, but Wisconsin ended up in the top 15 nationwide due to our generally lower wages.

Change in average weekly wage, March 2022 vs March 2021
Wis. +8.7% (+$86)
US +6.7% (+$86)

Pretty good situation to be in, even though the additional jobs and wages also show how inflation could kick in and speed up (beyond regular corporate greed).

To me, that’s the “good inflation”, which is based on high demand from consumers, and it beats recession and stagnant job growth. But given Fed Chair Powell's market-killing words the other day, it seems like the Masters of the Universe don't like seeing everyday people benefitting from the Biden Boom of jobs.