The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development announced Thursday the state's unemployment rate continued to climb in March, rising 0.6 percentage points and surpassing the national average.
Wisconsin's rate of unemployment rose to 9.4 percent, up from 8.8 percent in February, according to a DWD statement. The rate is nearly double that of March 2008, when it stood at 5 percent.
The national unemployment rate for March was 9 percent, up from February's 8.9 percent.
Until recently, Wisconsin has had a lower rate of unemployment than the nation's overall rate.
Wisconsin has been hit especially hard because the recession is strongly affecting the manufacturing industry, according to Laura Dresser, research director of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy.
""Wisconsin has the second-highest share of its workers in manufacturing [of any state],"" Dresser said. ""We're moving into a second stage of this recession, which is general labor market weakness and manufacturing decline, and that hits us uniquely, and that's why I think Wisconsin is above the national rate now.""
According to the statement, Wisconsin has lost 112,400 nonfarm jobs since a year ago.
The state Legislature's Joint Committee on Finance voted unanimously Thursday to OK the DWD's request for $38 million in stimulus funds to help dislocated workers, youth and people with disabilities find jobs and join in revitalizing the economy.
Dennis Winters, chief of the DWD's Office of Economic Advisors, said Wisconsin is trying to get as many ""shovel-ready"" construction projects off the ground as possible within the next one to two years.
""There's also money for things like unemployment compensation and job training so that we can get a lot of the people that are out of work trained up for new jobs or enhance their skills for the industries that they're in,"" Winters said.
