Wisconsin: Only 93,200 Net New Jobs Needed in January 2015 to Hit Governor Walker’s 250,000 Jobs Target

According to WI DWD statistics released today.

Figure 1: Wisconsin private nonfarm payroll employment (red), and linear trend implied by Governor Walker’s 250,000 net new private sector jobs pledge (gray). Dashed line at beginning of Walker administration. Governor Walker recommits to 250,000 net new jobs in August 2013. Source: WI DWD, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and author’s calculations.

Since average net job creation in Wisconsin under Governor Walker has been 3.3 thousand, with a standard deviation of 4.7 thousand, the likelihood that the target will be achieved is low.

But then, as a government official wrote to me on May 16, 2012: “The adminstration assumed that the jobs gains would be back loaded — ramping up with time.” So perhaps the ramp will be extremely steep this month!!!

Figure 2 presents a comparison of Wisconsin’s employment growth against that of the United States.

Figure 2: Log private nonfarm payroll employment in US (blue), and Wisconsin (red). Dashed line at beginning of Walker administration. Source: WI DWD, BLS, and author’s calculations.