Illinois Governor Pat Quinn finally has some political ammunition to use the next time Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker mocks the Land of Lincoln's economy. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois added the most jobs in the nation in October, while Wisconsin saw a "significant decline" in employment.
As the Capitol Fax Blog pointed out Monday, Wisconsin lost 9,700 jobs in October compared with their September numbers. The report came out just weeks after Walker, who eliminated collective bargaining rights in his state by saying it would improve the state's economy, spoke at Chicago's Union League Club about his alleged success "taking on powerful political interests" in Wisconsin.
More on Wisconsin's numbers from Bloomberg News:
Wisconsin saw a job increase in the leisure and hospitality sector, according to the bureau's seasonally adjusted data.
But there were declines in several other sectors: construction; manufacturing; trade, transportation and utilities; financial activities; professional and business services; education and health services, and government.
Despite adding 30,000 jobs in October, the news still isn't great in Illinois. Illinois' job growth appears to have encouraged many people who had stopped looking for work to resume job searches, increasing the size of the labor force. That caused the unemployment rate to rise to 10.1% even with the new jobs.
“Illinois' economy adding 30,000 jobs is encouraging during this challenging period of economic recovery,” Illinois Department of Employment Security Director Jay Rowell told Crain's Chicago Business. “Consumer confidence is critical to a growing economy, and a growing economy creates jobs.”
As for Wisconsin's floundering numbers, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development told Channel 3000 they didn't think it would be a trend.
"I would say it's not going in a direction we would like it," Dennis Winter, a department economist, told the station. "We started out this year doing very well, through June, and we're still up some 20,000 private-sector jobs since the first of the year. So, if you take it in that context too, we're doing pretty well."