Governor Walker on track to his target of 250,000 new private sector jobs in his first term

Governor Walker campaigned on adding 250,000 new jobs in Wisconsin during his first four-year term. To  reach this goal the state needs to add, on average, about 5,200 jobs per month for the 48 months.

The April preliminary job numbers were issued last Thursday by the Department of Work Force Development.  They show that from January through April, Wisconsin added, on average, 6,650 new jobs for each of the first four months of this year.  I have included the data for construction, manufacturing and public sector jobs in the charts previously published and in the one below.  The job growth in these areas is important in terms of whether higher-paying jobs are being created.

The governor's 250,000 jobs promise has morphed from "250,000 jobs" to "250,000 new jobs" to "250,000 new private sector jobs."  The relatively recent declaration that his campaign promise relates to 250,000 new "private sector jobs" is a smart one, as it is likely that as his term wears on, there will be a reduction in public sector jobs.  Thus, 250,000 new "private sector jobs" will ease the burden of appearing to hit his target, compared to the creation of a net gain of 250,000 total jobs, both public and private.  

As I mentioned in an earlier post, for the Governor to hit his goal, the number of people available for work in the job market (total labor force, both employed and unemployed) will have to increase pretty dramatically, and as Acting Secretary Baumbach noted in the April jobs report, 10,900 people entered the labor force in April alone.