From the recently released Summer WMC Wisconsin Employer Survey:
“There is no doubt that the combination of higher costs and higher interest rates is causing employers to rethink their investment and hiring plans,” added Bauer. “While we may not enter a general recession, these data indicate that the economy could slow at least by the end of the year.”
However, perceptions of Wisconsin’s economy have remained largely unchanged since the winter survey:
Source: WMC. Notes: n=180, 182, Winter and Summer, respectively. The survey respondents are WMC members.
What do the objective indicators show about Wisconsin’s economy in the 6 months following the winter survey (released January 17) (shaded lilac in figure 1 below)?
Figure 1: Wisconsin Nonfarm Payroll Employment (blue), Philadelphia Fed first benchmark NFP estimate (pink), Citizen Employment (tan), real wages and wages deflated by chained national CPI (sky blue), GDP ( red), coincident index (green) , all in log 2021M11=0. Lilac shading denotes 6 months after the WMC winter study. Source: BLS, BEA, Philadelphia Fed [1], [2]and the author’s figures.
Unpaid farm employment, as well as real wages and salaries, as well as the casualty index, all increased during the period in question. Employment, which is best measured at the federal level, alone was flat. So, cognitive dissonance part 1.
Despite the sluggish growth prospects seen by the WMC membership, what do firms think they will be doing in terms of employment? Amazingly, they seem to see their workers multiply! So, cognitive dissonance, part 2.
Source: WMC. Notes: n=180, 182, Winter and Summer, respectively. The survey respondents are WMC members.
One interesting aspect of the Summer 2024 report is that the time series graph showing the proportion of respondents who rated Wisconsin’s economy, included in the Winter 2024 report, was not released. Presumably, this was because the graph did not match the WMC narrative. To complete the picture, I added in the edited version of the winter 2024 graph.
Note: The large light blue circle is the summer 2024 observation. Source: WMC, Wisconsin Employer Survey (January 2024), also edited by the author using the July 2024 survey.
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