As the country did well, so did Wisconsin. Employment exceeded the Labor Department's November forecast.
figure 1: Wisconsin Nonfarm Employment (Black), DoR Forecast (Tan+), Implied by SPF Forecast, 000's, sa Source: DWD, Wisconsin Department of Revenue (November), SPF, and author's calculations.
Wisconsin economic outlook The November forecast is based on a national economic slowdown that S&P Global Market Insights included in its forecasts starting that month. If a slowdown hasn't materialized yet, it wouldn't be surprising to see performance beat expectations.
The SPF implied forecast is based on a first-difference regression from July 2021 to January 2024, which suggests that a one-percentage-point increase in U.S. nonfarm employment is associated with a 0.76 percentage point increase in Wisconsin employment (R2 of 0.41). (SPF forecasts are interpolated to each month via quadratic matching.)
