Menzie Chinn, a macroeconomist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the rise in state construction employment may be tied to a larger national construction boom. Chinn said about one-fifth of the change in employment for January and February is tied to nonresidential construction.
“There’s a big boom in the building of commercial (properties). Not commercial as in stores, but factories,” he said. “I don’t know how much of that is in Wisconsin, but nationwide, that’s a very big factor. There’s a lot of construction going on.”