Today the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) published fourth quarter QCEW data for 2011, which closely aligns with the job numbers previously released by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development . The data released today is formally known as the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW).
The data published by BLS today is based on actual job count data gathered from more than 150,000 Wisconsin employers. This data reflects more than 96% of all Wisconsin businesses counting each and every employee.
The federally published BLS jobs total for Wisconsin in December 2011 is virtually identical to the data BLS signed off on last month--a difference of 16 out of a total of almost 2.7 million jobs counted in the month--reaffirming that Wisconsin added thousands of jobs last year. Governor Walker released the following statement regarding today's publication of data:
The finalized, federal data clearly shows that Wisconsin gained thousands of jobs in 2011. This is a complete turnaround from the more than 100,000 jobs lost in the three years before I took office--which is when unemployment peaked above 9%. Now, the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since 2008.
Moving forward I will continue to focus on making it easier for employers to create and retain jobs in Wisconsin.