Wisconsin metro area unemployment falls

Unemployment in Wisconsin’s metropolitan areas continues to fall, with the January jobless rates ranging from 3.0% in metropolitan Madison to 5.0% in metropolitan Racine, the State Department of Workforce Development said Wednesday.

Rates in all 12 metro areas in Wisconsin posted year-over-year improvement. The biggest gain was in Fond du Lac, which dropped from 4.2% unemployment in January 2016 to 3.6% this past January. Janesville’s improvement was the smallest. Unemployment there fell two-tenths of a point over the year, to 4.9%.

The four-county Milwaukee metro area had a 4.2% jobless rate in January, down from 4.7% a year earlier.

The metropolitan-area unemployment figures are not adjusted to account for the normal seasonal fluctuations in the workforce, so year-over-year comparisons are the most valid.