Jobless Rate Down from a Year Ago at Wisconsin

Despite nationwide economic recession, the State of Wisconsin registered a drop in its unemployment rate in October at 7.8%, down from 8.7% in October 2009. The Department of Workforce Development of Wisconsin disclosed that the unemployment rates in all 12 of Wisconsin’s primary metropolitan areas were down in October when compared with last year. The US unemployment rate for September and October was 9.6%, also down by 0.5% from a year ago.

Brian Jacobsen, an analyst with Wells Fargo Advantage Funds and an associate professor of economics for Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee, said that the recent jobless drop hasn’t been much of an improvement but there hasn’t been further deterioration either. “It’s not getting worse, but it’s not getting much better and that’s not good,” he pointed out.

The slow economic recovery of the state and the entire nation was associated with severity of the recent recession, fostering a difficult environment for job creation. However, another analyst said that the economic recovery recently was much better than the  recession in 1981-82. “In particular, after a recession this deep, the economy has historically come back very quickly,” explained Scott Niederjohn, an associate professor of economics at Lakeland College in Sheboygan.