December 2014 numbers offer a downtick on Walker’s first-term jobs promise

The final update on the number of jobs created in Gov. Scott Walker’s first term ended on a bit of a down note March 5, 2015 when final monthly numbers cut 2,200 jobs cut from the December tally.

The revision in the monthly report from the state Department of Workforce Development changed the private-sector jobs tally for December from an increase of 7,600 to an increase of 5,400.

During his 2010 campaign, Walker’s top campaign promise was that state employers would add 250,000 jobs by the end of his first term. We declared the jobs Promise Broken in September 2014, when it became clear that it would be mathematically impossible to achieve the promise.

(Walker did not make such a promise during his successful reelection campaign in 2014.)

The new report allows us to provide an almost-final look at job creation in Walker’s first four years in office.

For our tally, we use the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which surveys nearly all state businesses, to get annual figures. We 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.

The latest monthly data puts the final 2014 jobs tally at 51,200, far more than any of the other three years of the governor’s first term.

Thus, the state added some 144,595 private sector jobs in Walker’s first term. That’s about 58 percent of the total promised, or 105,405 short.

One final revision of the 2014 numbers will come in late spring when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its final count for 2014.