June gains wrap up a good first half for jobs in 2026 for Wisconsin

After a tough 2025, Wisconsin has had a good recovery in the jobs market. That was retierated in the recent report for June from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

Employment – There were 3,030,100 people employed in Wisconsin, up 6,000 over the month and up 16,600 over the year.
• Labor Force – The state’s labor force participation rate ticked up to 64.5% which is 3.0 percentage points above the national rate of 61.5%.
• Nonfarm Jobs – The total nonfarm jobs in the state were 3,041,000, an increase of 2,400 over last month.
• Unemployment – The state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate ticked down to 3.3%, which is 0.9 percentage points below the national unemployment rate of 4.2%.

That increase of 2,400 nonfarm jobs includes an increase of 3,000 in the private sector, which now puts Wisconsin at a new record high for private sector jobs.

Even the one area in Wisconsin that had significant seasonally-adjusted “losses” in June (Construction -2,100), was shown as a reflection of lower-than-usual Summer hiring (+3,200), and followed a May where 3,000 jobs were added on a seasonal adjusted basis and 9,500 added in raw numbers. Put those two months together, and Construction had a seasonally adjusted 900 jobs added, and it continues a good trend that we've had in that sector for the last 4 1/2 years in our state.

In another sector that has high levels of seasonal jobs, Leisure and Hospitality had a large jump in April, indicating that seasonal hiring started early. But it has stayed at that higher level in May and June, which isn't what you'd expect if it was merely Summer hiring being pulled forward.

Manufacturing also has had a rebound in employment reported so far for 2026, after consistent losses from 2023 through 2025.

For the household survey, the unemployment rate declined 0.1% in Wisconsin (from 3.4% in May to 3.3%in June) as it did in America as a whole (from 4.3% to 4.2%). But it was for very different reasons, as Wisconsin defied the national trends by growing its labor force by even more than it typically does at the start of Summer, up by 3,300 on a seasonally adjusted basis and 71,800 in reality. That was during a month where the US saw its seasonally-adjusted work force shrink by 720,000. Wisconsin also saw more people list themselves as employed (+6,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis) while the US had 507,000 fewer people say they were working.

Assuming these numbers hold up, that's a really good first half of the year in our state for both adding jobs, and adding work force in general. Both had been categories that the state had struggled with in 2024 and 2025, and it might explain why economic sentiment seems much worse nationwide than the conditions on the ground in Wisconsin might indicate.