Jobs – Working Wisconsin

Labor Market Reaches a New High, but 2025 Job Growth is Weak

The total number of jobs in the state reached new highs in 2025. Since January, the state has added an average of 1400 jobs each month – growth, but relatively weak. In July, the state reached a record high of 3,058,500 jobs.

Unemployment in the state, 3.1% in July, remains very low. The rate has been under 3.5% since September of 2021, though it has drifted upward from the unprecedented 2.6% lows in early 2023.

The jobs and unemployment data are strong, but the economy is cooling off after the rapid recovery from pandemic shutdowns.

Still, the relatively strong economy is good news for workers. Sustained job growth and low unemployment rates increase workers’ bargaining power. Workers can seek out better work and leave their jobs for better opportunities, or they can use the credible threat of leaving to secure improvements in the jobs they hold. Job growth and low unemployment increase the power of workers, and the sustained recovery from the pandemic has been good for workers.

Wisconsin also continues to have a relatively high labor force participation rate – 66.4% of working age people in Wisconsin are in the labor market compared to the national rate of 62.6%. Wisconsin’s engagement with work is above national levels for both women and men.

While economic opportunity is steady, it is distributed unequally. Racial and geographic disparities are pronounced. Wisconsin’s well-documented racial disparity remains substantial and gravely concerning. Black workers in the state are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as white workers. Geographically, the county unemployment rates across the state are quite disparate ranging from a low of 2.3 (Lafayette County) to a high of 5.1 (Menominee County). Again, that is a substantial gap, but it is also the lowest disparity separating high and low unemployment counties in Wisconsin since data has been available in 1990.

The nation has added fewer jobs than expected across the summer, and analysts are increasingly concerned that the slowdown foreshadows a recession. Prices also continue to rise with inflation at 2.7% in July. While this is just slightly above inflation of a year ago, there are troubling signs that consumer prices are rising which may be related to tariffs.

Workers have gained from the strong economy. For workers, the warning signs and the brewing economic storm of tariffs, immigration crackdowns, and federal disinvestment are especially concerning. While the current labor market is solid, these substantial disruptions may not only slow our overall economic growth, but also reduce the power of working people, as opportunities become more scarce.

Wisconsin Jobs Hit Another Record High

J1 shows that jobs in Wisconsin and the U.S. reached new highs in July.

In July 2025, federal data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that Wisconsin posted a record breaking number of jobs: 3,058,500. The Wisconsin job market grew by 20,200 over the past year.

Wisconsin’s jobs growth substantially lags the pace of national recovery. J1 shows the trajectory of job recovery for Wisconsin and the nation. Wisconsin’s labor market growth has lagged the national rate since September 2021. The national economy reached the pre-pandemic jobs threshold before Wisconsin did and continues to grow more rapidly. In July 2025, the nation had nearly 5% more jobs than it did before the pandemic shutdowns (in February 2020). Wisconsin added just 2% to the labor market during the same period.

J2 shows sectors recovering to pre-pandemic levels but lagging national pace.

Wisconsin’s relatively slow jobs growth is clear in J2. The rate of growth in Wisconsin’s key sectors is below national levels for every single sector except construction (Wisconsin up by 13%, compared to a national increase of 9%). The lagging Wisconsin rate of growth is especially clear in education and health services where Wisconsin added just 5% while nationally jobs grew by 12%, more than twice as fast. The national pace of growth is also more than twice as fast in the professional and business services sector where Wisconsin has added only 2% while nationally jobs in the sector are up 5%.

Trends in Wisconsin’s manufacturing sector are especially disturbing. In July 2025, Wisconsin had 3% fewer manufacturing jobs than it did before the pandemic shutdowns. The U.S. manufacturing sector fell just barely short of the 2020 level in July. Neither the Wisconsin losses nor the national stagnation suggest that a manufacturing renaissance is yet emerging.

The administration argues that new tariffs will rebuild U.S. manufacturing. Obviously it is too early to observe the impact of the policies, but, as documented by Menzie Chinn, neither the balance of trade nor the trend in manufacturing have changed meaningfully since “Liberation Day” in April, when tariffs were announced. Additionally, we are skeptical of the longer-term prospects of tariffs rebuilding Wisconsin’s manufacturing base. The Economic Policy Institute takes on the question below.

Can high and broad-based tariffs fix the U.S. trade deficit or rebuild manufacturing employment?

No, mostly because high and broad-based tariffs will also reduce exports along with imports, and this will leave the balance of trade mostly unchanged. Exports fall when tariffs are introduced for a number of reasons. The first is that many U.S. exports use imports as intermediate inputs to final goods produced in the United States. Making these inputs more expensive with tariffs will boost the price of these U.S. exports and make them less competitive in global markets. Second, trading partners are highly likely to retaliate to U.S. tariffs with tariffs of their own, making exports more expensive in international markets—which we’ve seen on “Made in America” goods from Boeing airplanes to Kentucky bourbon. And finally, tariffs will put upward pressure on the value of the U.S. dollar in global markets, which will make our exports more expensive and will increase the attractiveness of imports to U.S. customers—primary causes of U.S. trade deficits and manufacturing job losses.

From EPI, Tariffs: Everything you Need to Know but were Afraid to Ask

Very Low Unemployment Helps Workers Improve Jobs

J3. Unemployment Rate, Wisconsin and U.S., January 2021 – July 2025

Over the last two years, Wisconsin’s unemployment has hovered at levels just slightly above 3%. Current unemployment is slightly higher than the historic lows set in 2023. J3 makes clear that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is consistently below the national rate. While Wisconsin has seen a slight uptick from the low of 2.6% set in February and March of 2023, unemployment remains well below previous decades. Since September 2021, unemployment has stayed under 3.5%, and in July 2025 the unemployment rate was just 3.1%.

Sustained low unemployment rates are good news for those who are looking for work since job seekers face less competition for available jobs. But it also benefits all workers. Low unemployment rates provide workers stronger leverage at work. They allow workers to seek better pay and working conditions in the jobs they hold or provide them a sense of opportunity as they consider their options. With another year of very low unemployment, workers have had another year of higher security, and this helps them in their search for better pay, schedules, and benefits.

Disparity in Unemployment by Race and Geography

Racial disparities in Wisconsin’s unemployment are substantial, with Black and Brown workers much more likely to be unemployed than whites in the state. The disparity between Black and white workers has been extreme, and we have documented the high level of disparity, especially in unemployment in previous editions of the State of Working Wisconsin. (See Race in the Heartland for a summary of Wisconsin’s extreme racial disparity.)

Disparity in unemployment is evident in J4, which provides estimates of unemployment rates racial and ethnic categories in the first three months of 2025 (Q1 2025). In Wisconsin, the white unemployment rate just 2.5% is the lowest with the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders at 2.9%. Unemployment is more than twice as high for Black workers: 5.8%. For Hispanics, the unemployment rate of 4.6% is also substantially higher than the white rate.

For decades, Black workers have been well over twice as likely to be unemployed as white workers in the state, and this ratio in Wisconsin has always substantially exceeded the national ratio of disparity. In 2023, with strong job employment growth among Black workers, Wisconsin saw the Black-white unemployment gap begin to close, even outpacing the national trend. Progress on the Black/white unemployment gap stalled out over the last two years. The unemployment rates of Hispanic and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are growing much faster than white and Black rates as shown in J5.

Source: Economic Policy Institute. 2025. State of Working America Data Library, Version 2025.7.17. https://data.epi.org.

Source: EPI analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) data and Current Population Survey (CPS) data. https://www.epi.org/indicators/state-unemployment-race-ethnicity/

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Labor Statistics (LAUS) program.

Opportunity and unemployment show geographic variation easily seen in the distribution of county unemployment rates. In June 2025, unemployment in the state ranged from a low in Lafayette County of 2.3% to a high in Menominee County of 5.1%. Twenty-eight of Wisconsin’s 72 counties had unemployment below 3%, which is extremely low unemployment. Menominee County’s unemployment rate is more than twice that of Lafayette County’s rate, which is a substantial disparity. But Menominee County, which has historically seen among the worst unemployment rates for any county in the state, is posting historic lows of unemployment. Sustained low unemployment appears to be decreasing the geographic disparities in unemployment rates.

Wisconsinites are Committed to Work

Wisconsin’s labor force participation rate is consistently and substantially higher than the national level.

Wisconsin’s commitment to work is evident in the share of working age people in the labor force, the “labor force participation rate.” J7 compares labor force participation in the U.S. and Wisconsin from 1979 to 2024. Wisconsinites have consistently shown a stronger attachment to work, with the state’s 2024 labor force participation rate at 66.4% compared to the national rate of 62.6%.

Women in Wisconsin Are Especially Committed to Work

Over the last 40 years, men’s labor force participation has been declining while women’s participation rose substantially from 1979-1999 and then drifted down in recent years.

J8 shows that while Wisconsin reflects those national trends, workers in the state – both men and women – have historically shown greater connection to work. In 2024, 71% of Wisconsin’s men participated in the labor force (higher than the national 68% rate).

Wisconsin women’s labor force participation is also consistently above national rates of participation: Nearly 62% of Wisconsin women worked in 2024, compared to 58% of women nationally.