Wisconsin has not added many new private sector jobs in the past year. According to federal labor data, the state ranks 33rd in the nation — moving up one position since Gov. Scott Walker took office. The state lost nearly 4,000 manufacturing jobs in 2016, despite spending an estimated $300 million a year to boost jobs in the sector. In the nation, 27 other states also lost manufacturing jobs.
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Speaking of job numbers, our colleagues at Wisconsin Public Radio have been crunching the latest in Wisconsin. They show job growth has slowed over the past year. WPR’s Shawn Johnson has done the deep dive reporting on this with graphics help from our partners at WisContext.org. Shawn joins us now. Thanks for your time.
Shawn Johnson:
Hey Zac.
Zac Schultz:
How bad are the numbers for Wisconsin?
Shawn Johnson:
What we have here, we already knew the numbers for Wisconsin for 2016. We knew it was a slow year for Wisconsin in terms of hiring. About 11,000 jobs, which is much lower than we’ve had recently. But what we found out with these numbers for 2016, this apples to apples comparison with other states is that other states slowed down too. Wisconsin did end up being 33rd in the nation in private sector growth in 2016. It’s about par for Wisconsin. It was 33rd last year. If you look back over the last six years, the growth over that entire span, Wisconsin has been 34th since Governor Scott Walker took office. So that’s right around where we have been almost all the time.
Zac Schultz:
These are the gold standard numbers, correct?
Shawn Johnson:
Right. They are the quarterly census of employment and wages which as the name suggests it’s basically a census of employers. An actual hard count of their employment data of 96% of employers. So they’re as good as they gets when it comes to measuring job growth. They give you that state to state comparison, a real good snapshot of where things stand.
Zac Schultz:
Wisconsin legislators love to compare themselves to Minnesota. We’ve got a chart that shows where we are. It looks like Minnesota’s catching up?
Shawn Johnson:
It’s significant because we still have more people than Minnesota, about 250,000 or so more people live in Wisconsin than Minnesota. As you see in those numbers, Minnesota is about ready to pass us in private sector job growth. It’s gaining pretty quick. Almost past in this report. They are growing faster than Wisconsin. Definitely. No doubt about it.
Zac Schultz:
Regionally, Wisconsin is where they have been. They’re ahead of a couple states but behind a couple by significant margins?
Shawn Johnson:
If you look across the whole region, Wisconsin again was 34th in private sector job growth over the six year span. It is behind states like Minnesota, Michigan, toward the bottom of the pack there.
Zac Schultz:
Is this reflecting a national trend? You said everyone was down about the same rate or is Wisconsin lagging behind the nation?
Shawn Johnson:
If you just look at 2015, when we added a lot more jobs than we did in 2016, we were 33rd both years. It is reflective of a national trend in that way. It’s definitely the case that other mid-western states are growing faster than us. The national economy is definitely growing faster than us, about 1.3% growth. While everybody is slowing down, what that means is, we’re still lagging behind. If you go to other industries like manufacturing, that trend continues.
Zac Schultz:
And manufacturing is critical because that’s what Governor Walker and the Republican have put a lot of money into tax credits for manufacturing. They’ve tried to say that this is the heart of Wisconsin. We have to have manufacturing and we are still losing jobs.
Shawn Johnson:
We are. We lost just under 4,000 jobs, manufacturing jobs in 2016. A bad year for us. That was the first year the new manufacturing tax credit was in place. The state was spending roughly $300 million a year on this tax credit to boost manufacturing at a time that the state lost manufacturing jobs so that’s a bad year for Wisconsin. However it was one of 28 states that lost manufacturing jobs in 2016. Not alone, although it does go to show the limited power of that tax credit.
Zac Schultz:
Governor Walker has been talking a lot about the unemployment rate. It’s the lowest since World War II is what he’s saying. How can we have such low unemployment and still no job growth at the same time. Are those opposed or are they completely apples and oranges?
Shawn Johnson:
They are measuring different things. The unemployment rate is measuring the percentage of–your friends and neighbors basically, people who live in Wisconsin who are actively looking for a job but don’t have it. There’s a small percentage of people who are actively looking for a job but don’t have it. If you are talking about job growth, growing that group of people who have jobs and growing that economy, that’s where Wisconsin lags. While we have low unemployment rate, the economy is not expanding like it is in other states.
Zac Schultz:
So in his first campaign, Governor Walker pledged to help create 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term. He’s nowhere close to that after the first term. Does he have a chance to catch it by the end of his second term?
Shawn Johnson:
Not if growth continues like it did in 2016. He fell, as you mentioned, well short in that first term. And that was a first term promise and a very explicit promise to help the state create 250,000 private sector jobs. We are, after 2016, that is about half way through the governor’s second term, about 70,000 jobs short. If the state picks up hiring and starts adding jobs the way it did earlier in the governor’s term, maybe that pledge is reachable in term two. If it continues on the trend that we saw in 2016, then no way.
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