Wisconsin’s June Jobs Report Worst of 2012

Preliminary numbers show Wisconsin lost more than 13,000 jobs in the month of June, with most of those job losses coming in the private sector.

If the preliminary numbers from a monthly survey of employers hold, they’d represent the state’s worst jobs report so far in 2012. In total, the report showed 13,200 jobs lost in June, with 11,700 of those jobs lost in the private sector. A monthly survey of households also found job losses, causing the state’s unemployment rate to rise from 6.8 to 7 percent.

Labor economist Laura Dresser with the Center on Wisconsin Strategies says it shows Wisconsin is still nowhere close to recovered from the recession that began almost five years ago. “We have a giant jobs deficit that losing 10,000 jobs or gaining 10,000 jobs barely [makes] a dent in.”

The June report would nearly wipe out Wisconsin’s job gains from earlier in 2012, leaving just 3,100 jobs added this year. The monthly numbers are frequently revised later, however.

The Walker administration called the numbers misleading. Department of Workforce Development Secretary Reggie Newson even wrote a letter to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, asking the bureau to it to change the way it “benchmarks” its monthly job estimates so they’re more consistent.