Wisconsin Job Watch
Wisconsin closes 2011 with six straight months of job loss
Wisconsin lost another 1,700 jobs in December, reports the latest Wisconsin Job Watch from COWS, marking the
sixth consecutive month of job loss. The second half of 2011 in Wisconsin stands in dramatic and distressing
contrast to consistent job growth at the national level.
The nation added 853,000 jobs over the last six months of 2011, posting steady growth of 0.7 percent of the job
base. Over those same six months Wisconsin lost 35,600 jobs, bringing the job base down by just over 1 percent.
No other state lost that many jobs. (Indeed, just 13 states posted net job losses over those six months.)
The losses of the second half of 2011 have effectively wiped out Wisconsin’s job growth of 38,800 in the first six
months of 2011. Wisconsin ended 2011 with just 3,200 more jobs than it had in December 2010, and the state
faces a substantial jobs deficit of 215,300.
Weak job growth and continuing job losses in this “recovery” have left more than 200,000 Wisconsinites out of work
and suggests that the Wisconsin economy is on the wrong track.
To read the full report, click here.
The Center on Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) is a nonprofit think-and-do tank, based at the University of Wisconsin-
Madison, that promotes “high road” solutions to social problems. These treat shared growth and opportunity,
environmental sustainability, and resilient democratic institutions as necessary and achievable complements in
human development. COWS is nonpartisan but values-based. We seek a world of equal opportunity and security for
all. For more information, visit www.cows.org.