As Wisconsinites start voting, the jobs market is in great shape here.

As the November election looms in this battleground state, we got more good news about the Wisconsin jobs market.

The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today announced new record-high employment during September 2024, according to preliminary estimates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is the fifth consecutive monthly record for state employment, highlighting the unprecedented number of workers participating in Wisconsin's economy.

Preliminary employment estimates for September 2024 showed Wisconsin's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained at 2.9%, which is 1.2 percentage points below the national unemployment rate of 4.1%. The state's labor force participation rate increased to 65.6% in September while the national rate stayed at 62.7%.

• Place of Residence Data: Wisconsin's unemployment rate was 2.9% in September, 1.2 percentage points below the national rate of 4.1%. Wisconsin's labor force increased by 6,700 over the month and 1,300 over the year. The number of people employed increased 7,700 over the month to a record-high 3,059,700 employed.
• Place of Work Data: Total nonfarm jobs decreased 4,000 over the month and increased 30,800 over the year to 3,044,800 jobs.

But even the loss of 4,000 payroll jobs isn't as bad as it sounds, as a "loss" of 7,300 jobs in state government appears to be the result of a large number of UW employees starting work in time to be recorded in the August report when the model counted on them not being recorded until September.

In the private sector, the state added 2,100 (seasonally-adjusted) jobs in September, continuing a multi-year trend of solid job growth in both the private sector, and overall. Even after people had returned to work following the COVID cutbacks.

On the household survey, this was the 7th straight month where the state's unemployment rate was under 3% (if you don't round), and the 2.86% rate for September was the lowest since May 2023.

And since the Biden-Harris Administration started, nearly 60,000 fewer Wisconsinites are unemployed, and nearly 100,000 more are working.

All of this looks pretty good to me. Wisconsin has even had our labor force rebound from a downtrend that started in 2017, which had been a real economic limitation for our state.

Seems like we would want to keep this going instead of having the chaos and likely decline that would hit with the return of Trumpian BS to the White House.