State Predicts Wisconsin Will Return To Pre-Recession Employment Levels By Mid-2015

Economic forecasters at the State Department of Revenue say it will be the middle of next year before Wisconsin recovers all the jobs it lost in the Great Recession.

The latest Economic Outlook report by the Department of Revenue projects that Wisconsin employment will return to its 2008 peak level of 2.9 million jobs by mid-2015. The report notes that the U.S. returned to its pre-recession peak in the middle of this year.

In the manufacturing sector, which has received considerable attention from the governor and state lawmakers, the Department of Revenue says jobs will grow at roughly the same rate as the rest of the state’s economy this year and next. But the department says manufacturing won’t hit its pre-recession peak any time soon, at least not by 2017, which is as far out as economists looked for this report.

Revenue forecasters say Wisconsin’s unemployment rate — currently at 5.5 percent — will drop to 5.1 percent by 2017. The decrease would be driven by a combination of employment gains and an overall shrinking of the state’s labor force.