Wisconsin Labor Market Cools While Staying Stronger Than Nation
Unemployment holds at 3.5% and labor force participation beats U.S. despite job losses over the year.
Construction is underway at the site of Meta’s future data center Tuesday, April 14, 2026, in Beaver Dam, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
Wisconsin’s labor market has slowed down over the last year, though unemployment has remained near historic lows, according to preliminary data released Thursday by the state Department of Workforce Development.
The state’s unemployment rate was 3.5 percent in April, unchanged from the previous month. Wisconsin also continues to outperform the nation when it comes to both the unemployment rate and labor force participation.
But state data shows Wisconsin had 10,700 more unemployed people in April 2026 than in the same month of 2025.
“The Wisconsin labor market has cooled a bit, along with the national economy,” said Scott Hodek, an economist for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. “Unemployment rates do remain historically low, though it has been slowly trending upwards.”
Wisconsin added around 9,000 non-farm jobs over the month, but it wasn’t enough to offset losses over the past year, according to the report.
The state lost about 12,800 non-farm jobs from April 2025 to April 2026, state data shows.
Hodek said he couldn’t point to a single factor driving the slowdown, but he said Wisconsin was affected by the same challenges facing the national economy.
“We’ve got tariffs and other contributors to higher prices,” he said. “The war in Iran is definitely impacting gas prices as well, and those gas prices are an important business input as well as something that consumers spend a lot on.”
He also said it was hard to know whether the decline in non-farm jobs was due more to worker retirements or layoffs and separations. But he said there hasn’t been a major rise in the unemployment rate associated with the job losses.
Between April 2025 and April 2026, Wisconsin lost 7,800 manufacturing jobs, while gaining 6,500 construction jobs, according to the report.
Hodek said the construction industry did experience a bit of a “blip” in April, losing 400 jobs compared to March.
“That may be interrupting a longer term trend, but I’d hesitate to do anything other than say it’s something to keep an eye on,” he said. “We’ve only seen a couple data points there, and I haven’t seen a lot of other indications so far that the construction trend is slowing as a bright spot for Wisconsin.”
Even though there are signs that the labor market is cooling, Hodek also said the state’s aging population continues contributing to a “worker quantity challenge.”
“Despite everything else that’s going on, the underlying labor challenge still remains demographic as the baby boomers age out of the labor force,” he said.
Hodek also said it’s difficult to know exactly which industries are being most affected by an aging workforce.
“Anytime we see job numbers go down, we have to wonder how much of that impact is related to that,” he said. “We know that there are openings in every industry that are difficult to fill, and a lot of times those are skill mismatches, but there’s also the fact that we have fewer people.”
Wisconsin’s labor market has cooled, but unemployment remains near historic lows was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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