Department of Workforce Development

MADISON – The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) today announced the state’s preliminary seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate for the month of April was 4.2 percent, which is up slightly from 4.1 percent for the month of March.

The number of people unemployed in the state dropped 13,000, from 146,200 in March to 133,200 in April, while the labor force, which usually sees a sizeable increase in April, grew by only 2,200, to 3,031,100.

"Wisconsin’s April 2001, unemployment rate of 4.2 percent equaled the average April unemployment rate for all Aprils between 1990 and 2000, which illustrates that Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is very much in line with performance over the past decade," DWD Secretary Jennifer Reinert said.

Although there were 2,832,300 jobs in the state in April, up 26,100 from the 2,806,200 reported for March, the manufacturing sector continued to see job losses. There were 1,700 fewer jobs in the manufacturing sector in April than there had been in March, further evidence of a very sluggish market. Since last year in April, there has been a decrease of 13,500 jobs in manufacturing. There are 598,700 jobs in the manufacturing industry in the state.

The increase in jobs was fairly evenly divided between construction, services and retail trade. Construction jobs grew by 8,400, services by 6,600 and retail trade by 5,200.

"Positive movement in construction and in the service industry is encouraging, but we are still watching manufacturing as that industry continues to struggle," Secretary Reinert said.

In historic context, unemployment rates continue to be very low and the labor market, although sluggish, continues to add jobs.