Mural depicting workers painted on windows of the Madison-Kipp Corp. by Goodman Community Center students and Madison-Kipp employees with Dane Arts Mural Arts. (Photo by Erik Gunn /Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin job growth has been slowing over the last year, new data published Thursday suggests.

Total nonfarm jobs in Wisconsin rose by 9,000 in December compared with November, the Department of Workforce Development reported. When compared with December 2024, however, the increase amounted to 6,700 — suggesting a “cooling and holding pattern” in the state’s economy, said Scott Hodek, section chief in the department’s Office of Economic Advisors, during a media briefing Thursday.

“We’ve seen it cool a little, and that’s following national trends,” Hodek said. “There’s been a fair amount of volatility and uncertainty in the national economy, and of course that impacts Wisconsin as well.”

Earlier this month Groundwork Collaborative, a Washington D.C. progressive economic policy think tank, described the national December jobs report in grim terms.

“The December report caps a year of sluggish job growth, with the fewest number of jobs added outside of a recession since 2003,” Groundwork stated in a Jan. 9 press release. “Hiring slowed sharply over the course of 2025.”

The organization’s analysis put much of the blame on tariffs imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump and the accompanying uncertainty amid federal policy gyrations.

In Wisconsin, while jobs are in decline, three-month trends in separations and layoffs have “stayed pretty stable,” Hodek said Thursday.

“People are just essentially staying in jobs longer and you’re not seeing a lot of necessarily separations, but not necessarily a lot of hiring either,” Hodek said.

Job numbers have fallen in manufacturing and some parts of the service sector. There were 1,100 fewer manufacturing jobs reported in December than in November, and 3,800 fewer than in December 2024. Professional services jobs declined in December by 3,700 compared with November, and by 6,200 compared with December 2024.

Construction jobs increased by 3,100 in December compared with November 2025 and by 5,100 compared with December 2024. Leisure and hospitality gained 4,700 jobs in December compared with November and 10,900 jobs compared with December 2024. The number of health care jobs increased by 1,700 from November to December and by 10,900 from December 2024.

Jobs numbers in the monthly report are projections drawn from a federal survey of employer payrolls.

From a separate federal survey of households that asks whether people are working or actively seeking work, DWD has projected that 65,500 fewer Wisconsin residents were employed in December 2025 compared with December 2024. The state’s unemployment rate remained even with the previous month at 3.1%

The data aren’t granular enough to establish to what extent retirements account for the decrease in the number of employees, Hodek said. But he added that the “overall aging population,” the absence of a surge in unemployment insurance claims  and some other data “would back up this assertion that a fair number of those have to be retirees.”