Wisconsin added 7,800 public and private sector jobs last month, but the state’s unemployment rate still rose by two-tenths of a point. State workforce development officials say the seasonally-adjusted jobless rate was 7.5 percent in August, up from 7.3 percent in July.
The new state rate is still below the national unemployment figure of 8.1 percent.
Officials said an estimated 4,300 private sector jobs were added in August, along with 3,500 in the public sector. Those numbers are based on a survey of just 3.5 percent of employers and are subject to heavy revisions.
Wisconsin has created about 19,000 jobs since Republican Governor Scott Walker took office in 2011. He has repeatedly promised to create 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term in January 2015. The governor and many business experts say job growth has been weak because of the political uncertainty posed by recall elections earlier this year and the upcoming Presidential, Congressional, and state elections in November.