April Employment in Wisconsin

DWD released April figures today. Nonfarm payroll employment fell 1000, private nonfarm payroll employment by 3000 (seasonally adjusted). Corresponding March figures were revised down by 400 and 700, respectively. Minnesota’s April numbers were down as well, as described here.

Figure 1: Nonfarm payroll employment in Minnesota (blue), Wisconsin (red), and US (black), all in logs normalized to 2011M01=0. Light green shaded dates indicates data not yet benchmarked using QCEW data. Source: WI DWD, MN DEED, BLS and author’s calculations.

A comparison against Wisconsin’s other neighbors is here (through February; BLS will release data for all states tomorrow).

One needs to be cautious in interpreting recent data, let alone one month’s worth. In this regard, it’s important to remember that the data since October of 2017 does not reflect additional data obtained from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) and other sources. Wisconsin’s overall nonfarm payroll employment numbers were substantially revised as of the January 2018 release. (A similar caveat applies to Wisconsin manufacturing employment).


Figure 2: Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment, April 2018 release (dark bold red), December 2017 (pink), 000’s, s.a, on log scale. Light green shaded period denotes data benchmarked to QCEW data. Source: BLS.

Private nonfarm payroll employment as of April is still 9,700 below the promised 250,000 new jobs by January 2015 that Governor Walker recommitted to in August 2013.


Figure 3: Wisconsin private nonfarm payroll employment (red), and Governor Walker’s promise of 250,000 new private jobs by end of first term (gray line), 000’s, s.a. Light green shaded period denotes data not yet benchmarked to QCEW data. Source: BLS, author’s calculations.

6 thoughts on “April Employment in Wisconsin

  1. pgl

    To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment

    ttps://www.amazon.com/End-Presidency-Power-Impeachment/dp/1541644883

    by Laurence Tribe. Any guesses who he is thinking about?!

    1. Moses Herzog

      @ pgl
      I’m not familiar with Laurence Tribe. And believe me, I’m sympathetic to your thoughts. I mean as far as sentiment is concerned, I am there sitting next to you pgl with pompoms, I got the goofy neon green hat with the two beer cans on top and straw leading to my mouth, and I am buying the $15 stadium hotdogs. But a lot of this gets back to book publishers “striking while the iron is hot”. This goes back to Whitewater and Clinton books, the 5,000+ books that had “the root cause” and “the root solution” to the 2008 economic crisis. We find books poorly sourced, poorly written, typos galore, no index (I don’t buy non-fiction books without an index). This doesn’t mean sh*t. and it certainly doesn’t mean sh*t when Republicans are still running interference for the VSG. All these books do, is get people’s hopes up for events, that even if they EVER occur, you’re look at a post November 2020 scenario.

      As for me, I am waiting for Ashoka Mody’s book to come in to my local library (yes, it is on its way and guess who got the FIRST reserved copy at his local library), picking up the occasional hardcopy NYT, sitting in my little dimly-lit corner with my electrode pads attached for my ECT treatments self-prescribed to cope with Republican committee chairs’ corrupt defense of Trump, knowing full well we are still over 2 and 1/2 years away from impeachment.
      https://goo.gl/images/YMxgYU

    2. Moses Herzog

      WOW, Laurence Tribe obviously has an impressive resume. Still smells of a little opportunism in publishing the book now. I guess if it helps clarify what is going to be happening soon, I’m not against it. If they end up doing what they need to do it’s going to end up being very complex. I think if Republicans can try to impeach a man for basically hiding his own infidelity and sticking a cigar in some girl’s fun box, then there should be more than enough for Republicans to impeach Trump here.

  2. Steven Kopits

    That’s what you took away from a report entitled: “Wisconsin Unemployment Rate Declines to New Record Low of 2.8 Percent; State labor force participation rate increases by 0.2 percent to 68.9 percent”?

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