Latest look at Wisconsin jobs tally shows some improvement

State employers added a total of 8,400 jobs in September, according to a report issued Oct. 16, 2014 by the state Department of Workforce Development. The same report also revised upward by 700 the jobs count for August 2014.

The result: A one month swing to the positive of 9,100 jobs.

That’s more than the net total of 8,800 jobs that state employers added over the course of the first eight months of the year.

The jobs count, of course, is important because of Gov. Scott Walker’s top campaign promise from 2010. He pledged that the state would add 250,000 jobs by the end of his four-year term.

For our tally, we use the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which surveys nearly all state businesses, to get the most accurate picture for Walker's first three years in office. We then combine that with monthly survey data -- which comes from reports gathered from a small percentage of state businesses -- to provide the most up-to-date picture for where things stand so far in 2014.

The latest report puts our count at 111,295, meaning employers would have to add 138,705 jobs in the final three months of 2014 for Walker to meet his promise.

In September 2014, we ruled this a Promise Broken because experts said there’s no chance that the state would add that many jobs by the end of the year.