Employment numbers for July were released for today.

Nonfarm payroll employment and the August 2021 Outlook forecast:

Figure 1: Wisconsin nonfarm payroll employment from July release (blue), forecast from July 2021 Economic Outlook, released in August (teal squares), all in 000’s, seasonally adjusted. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS, DWD, and Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Nonfarm payroll employment in June was a bit below the DoR’s forecasted level for Q2, but growing rapidly at an 5.6% annualized. 4.6% is a bit slower than the national pace of 8.0%.  Relative to the 2020M02 nationwide peak, as of July WIsconsin NFP is down 3.8% as compared to 3.7% nationwide.

The dualistic nature of the recovery persists, with high contact services employment remaining more depressed than that for goods production. The recovery in leisure and hospitality seems to have stalled (according to seasonally adjusted numbers), while manufacturing employment has resumed its rise.

Figure 2: Wisconsin manufacturing employment release (blue), and July forecast from  Wisconsin Economic Outlook released in August (teal squares), all in 000’s, seasonally adjusted. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source: BLS, DWD and Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Figure 3: Wisconsin hospitality and leisure (blue), and July forecast from Wisconsin Economic Outlook  released in August (teal squares), all in 000’s, seasonally adjusted. Source: BLS, DWD, Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Manufacturing employment is 0.6% below February 2020 levels, while leisure and hospitality services employment is down 17.2% (on a seasonally adjusted basis).

Why has leisure and hospitality services employment seemingly stalled? From the DWD release:

“Wisconsin’s job numbers continue to show growth despite the Delta Variant’s emergence,” DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek said. “For individuals that are still seeking jobs, I encourage you to visit JobCenterofWisconsin.com and learn more about the thousands of good-paying employment opportunities available right now, and encourage all individuals that are eligible to get vaccinated to better protect yourself against COVID-19 and variants.”

As concerns about the delta variant grow, I cannot imagine that that development will tend to accelerate employment growth in this sector (Wisconsin hospitalizations are far below winter peaks, but are above the first wave peak in March 2020 — and rising).

Finally, we can look at how the other employment measure is tracking the labor market.

Figure 4: Nonfarm payroll employment (blue), and civilian employment (red), all in logs, 2020M02=0. NBER defined recession dates shaded gray. Source:  BLS, DWD, Philadelphia Fed.

Both series are rising, with nonfarm payroll employment showing faster growth in July. Civilian employment, based upon the household instead of establishment survey, shows lower growth, but is much more imprecise, and subject to large revisions. In that case, it might be better to rely on the year-on-year numbers, where civilian employment has grown 5.4% vs. 3.7% for NFP.