.
State revenue officials say Wisconsin’s economy is showing signs of a rebound, but the recovery in employment and personal income is not expected to start until 2010.
The latest quarterly forecast, issued by the Department of Revenue on Friday, shows the national economic recession remains severe but adds that “the bottom is in sight.”
Wisconsin’s economy is showing “signs of improvement” but a slow recovery is expected, the report says.
And unemployment will continue to be a problem.
“We will be bleeding jobs almost through the end of the year,” said John Koskinen, chief economist for research and policy for the state Department of Revenue.
From the time employment hit its recent peak in December 2007 to its projected low point, in the last few months of 2009, Wisconsin will have lost more than 155,000 jobs, or 5.4 percent of its work force.
“This is possibly the worst (percentage loss) since the end of World War II,” Koskinen said.
Manufacturing will continue to face the biggest job cuts, he said, because product orders are coming so slowly. “There is some evidence they are starting to turn around but it’s going to take some time,” he said. “We’d love to have them turn like a sports car, but they don’t.”
Since the beginning of the current recession, 13 percent of Wisconsin’s manufacturing jobs, or 65,400 jobs, have evaporated, the report said.
Koskinen said the construction industry also will lose more jobs as commercial projects finish and the housing sector hasn’t recovered yet.
Once hiring does start to turn around, a real employment recovery will take several years, he projected.
After the 2001 recession, it was 2004 before the job situation recovered, Koskinen said.
“Relative to the rest of the Great Lakes states, we came out of it faster than everybody else,” he said.
Wisconsin’s latest unemployment rate is 8.9 percent. Michigan’s, for example, is 14.1 percent.
Education and health services is the only private job sector expected to see employment growth in Wisconsin in 2009, the report said.
Personal income for state residents is expected to drop 1 percent this year, with wages declining 2 percent. Those figures would have been higher without the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the report said.
.
Advertisement 
