(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s unemployment rate remained at 3.2% in March, a full percentage point better than the 4.2% national rate.
Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Chief Economist Dennis Winters said during a news conference Thursday the data didn’t show any large-scale layoffs as businesses face an uncertain financial and overall trade market outlook after President Donald Trump’s tariffs were introduced.
Winters said that Wisconsin companies are sitting and waiting right now instead of acting.
“It puts them into a kind of limbo,” Winters said. “… You haven’t seen a lot of drastic action at this point.”
Winters added that companies would love to have more information in order to plan for the next six quarters but that they are “stuck kind of straddling the fence here because we don’t know what’s going to happen.”
He also said that consumers have shown similar apprehension.
The data show that there were 3,055,200 total nonfarm jobs in Wisconsin in March. The state’s labor force participation rate went down to 65.6% while the national rate is up to 62.5%,
The total number of individuals employed decreased by 5,600 over the month to 3,071,900.
