Wisconsin ranks 38th in private-sector job creation

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Thirty-seven states have been more successful in creating new jobs than Wisconsin, and a Marquette professor says officials might be trying to attract the wrong types of jobs.

In a new quarterly report, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wisconsin created 37,500 new private sector jobs during the year ending in March. That’s a gain of 1.7 percent, below the national average job growth of 2.4 percent.

Marquette economics department chairman Abdur Chowdhury says the state’s efforts might be focused too much on creating manufacturing jobs, the state’s top sector, instead of investing more in fields like information technology and health care.

Only a dozen states had smaller percentages of job growth than Wisconsin. When the public sector is added in, Wisconsin’s rank falls to 43rd among the 50 states, with a total job growth of 1.1 percent.

Spokesman Cullen Werwie of Governor Scott Walker’s office says the Badger State still faces challenges from a stagnant national economy. Werwie said Walker’s next two-year budget will focus on creating jobs and growing the state’s economy.

Tags: business, government, wisconsin, social