(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s number of individuals employed reached another all-time high in November.
The unemployment rate in the state was 2.9% in November, below the national rate of 4.2%.
“Over the last year, the Wisconsin unemployment rate has dropped one-half of a percentage point while the U.S. rate has increased a half of a percentage point, so that spread in total has increased a full percentage point,” Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Chief Economist Dennis Winters explained.
Overall, the state had 3,073,900 employed, an increase of 6,000 over the month. The labor participation rate increased to 65.8%, which is 3.3 percentage points above the number for the entire U.S.
The total nonfarm jobs increased 300 over the month and 23,400 over the year to 3,043,500 jobs.
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Going forward, however, the projected lack of labor force growth as the state’s workforce ages will make it difficult for the state’s economy to continue to grow.
“That comes back to a labor quality challenge, and that won’t be going away anytime in the near future where our gains are about zero going forward as far as we can see over the next 10 to 20 years,” Winters said. “And that ramification permeates all the way through the economic construct and we’re seeing it in all avenues and all industries and all geographies.”
