Category Archives: employment

Wisconsin Economy Watch 1

Wisconsin employment has now fallen below pre-recession peaks…
[Updated, with comments from WMC and Lt. Gov. Kleefisch; warning – your head will hurt after reading]

Figures released this afternoon indicate the three month change in nonfarm payroll employment and civilian employment have been negative for two and three months respectively. Since the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development (DWD) memo makes no mention of this, I think it useful to document the negative trends in Wisconsin employment.

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Wisconsin: Real Wages Are the Same as They Were in January 2011

In my interview with NPR’s Jim Zarolli, the question came up about wage developments. Embarrassingly, I had no opinion, having not looked at the data (I know that doesn’t stop some people from opining; in any case, that question and lots of other stuff didn’t make it into the piece that aired). Well, I looked up the data, and surprisingly the level of real hourly earnings in May 2015 is the same as it was in January 2011(!).

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The International Aspects of the Employment Release

The headline number for nonfarm payroll employment was decent [1], and although there are worrisome aspects, I think the key take-away is the fact that manufacturing employment is slowing much more than overall. To the extent that manufactured goods proxies for tradables, I think caution is in order with respect to monetary tightening. And yet, I read headlines reporting that the “Fed is on track to raise rates…”[Sparshott/RTE WSJ].

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The Low-Pay Recovery, Re-Assessed

From the Senate Republican Policy Committee Chair, John Barrasso, commenting on the December employment report:

The December jobs report, while posting 252,000 new jobs, reveals it’s still too soon to be bullish on an economic recovery. Wage data and labor force participation remain concerning.

Stagnant wage growth remains a weight on America’s economic recovery. In December, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls fell by five cents, to $24.57.

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Keystone XL Employment Effects

[Updated 2/5]

They’re small. Really small. From the Congressional Research Service (Jan. 5, 2015):

Because job projections, in particular, involve numerous assumptions and estimates, the State Department’s job estimates for Keystone XL have been a source of disagreement. One challenge to State’s analysis is that different definitions (e.g., for temporary jobs) and interpretations can lead to different numerical estimates and “fundamental confusion” about the Final EIS numbers. Consequently, it may be difficult to determine what overall economic and employment impacts may ultimately be attributable to the Keystone XL pipeline or to the various alternative transport scenarios if the pipeline is not constructed.

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