One reader Alleging that Senator Johnson was stating “It’s not that we don’t have enough jobs in Wisconsin.” Means I should report the number of jobs, not the number of jobs.However, before postalI accurately show manufacturing and nonfarm payrolls Work (from current agency surveys), referring to the number of jobs, i.e.:
Now, readers may think that BLS is not suitable for describing their own data series, but I am more confident. So in fact, as far as work goes, it’s fitting to draw the series from CES.
reader Econned then asserted without any supporting evidence I could find:
You are showing filled positions and Johnson is referencing unfilled positions.
In fact, Johnson just said “It’s not that we don’t have enough jobs in Wisconsin.” He is no Saying “It’s not that we don’t have enough unfilled Work in Wisconsin. But even on the face of this assertion, the total number of jobs and vacancies has not recovered to the pre-recession peak of 3.157 million at the time of Senator Johnson’s remarks. Instead, it is well below levels consistent with pre-recession trends.
image 3: Wisconsin private nonfarm payrolls plus job openings from South Australia’s JOLTS (blue), on a logarithmic scale, NBER defines peak-to-trough recession dates, shaded in grey. Source: BLS calculated by FRED, BLS, NBER and authors.
In February 2022, when Senator Johnson spoke, the total number of CES jobs and vacancies was 130,000 below the 2009M06-2020M01 trend (trend estimated using time trend regression).
