The Wisconsin October 2019 jobs report is not good

The October 2019 jobs report has almost no information about the monthly jobs picture and mostly discusses labor force participation rates:

The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today released the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) preliminary employment estimates for the month of October. The data shows that Wisconsin added 17,200 private-sector and 16,500 total non-farm jobs from October 2018 to October 2019. Wisconsin’s labor force participation rate in October was 67.1 percent, while the state’s unemployment rate in October was 3.3 percent. The national unemployment rate for October 2019 was 3.6 percent.

• Place of Residence Data: Wisconsin’s labor force participation rate in October was 67.1 percent in October, 3.8 percent higher than the national rate of 63.3 percent. Wisconsin’s unemployment rate in October was 3.3 percent, 0.3 percent lower than the national rate of 3.6 percent.

• Place of Work Data: Wisconsin added 17,200 private-sector and 16,500 total non-farm jobs from October 2018 to October 2019. From September 2019 to October 2019 Wisconsin’s private-sector and total non-farm jobs declined by 1,100 and 1,200 respectively.

Luckily, Jake looks at the actual data, and there are a lot of negative numbers:

Wisconsin jobs change
Oct 2019
-1,200 total jobs, -1,100 private sector, -1,300 manufacturing

Sept 2019 revision
-1,200 total jobs, -700 private sector
-700 manufacturing

Revised Sept totals
+600 all jobs, +100 private sector, -2,900 manufacturing

Oct 2018 — Oct 2019
+16,500 total jobs, +17,200 private sector
-7,700 manufacturing

Jake further observes that Wisconsin now has “only 100 more manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin than we had 2 years ago” and that “the number of ’employed’ Wisconsinites has declined by more than 30,000 since peaking in early 2018, and is now at its lowest level in since Trump took office in January 2017.”

Wisconsin has some serious jobs troubles and needs some advice from Yoda.