Wisconsin Unemployment at 7%
Service industry is beginning to recover from devastating job losses.
On March 19th, the downtown Milwaukee Punch Bowl Social laid off 91 employees. Photo by Jennifer Rick.
Wisconsin unemployment dropped to 7 percent in July, down from 8.6 percent in June.
The state added 30,500 jobs last month, 25,500 of them in the private sector, according to the state Department of Workforce Development (DWD).
The state government lost more than 1,000 jobs in July. Meanwhile, local governments added more than 6,000 jobs. Private service providing industries added the most jobs last month with 18,100. This includes areas like shipping, sales and service jobs.
Caleb Frostman, secretary of DWD, pointed this out in a statement. And said, “The way people work is changing across numerous industry sectors.” He added that DWD is working on transitioning people to new jobs or training programs.
A recent report by WalletHub, a personal finance website, found Wisconsin had the eighth best unemployment recovery in the U.S.
Nationally, new unemployment claims surged up over 1 million again last week, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The week prior saw less than 1 million claims for the first time in five months. Then, last week there were 1.1 million new claims across the U.S, along with more than half a million claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance.
And in the seven days since the last time Urban Milwaukee reported on unemployment, the state has seen 14,679 new claims.
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