Conservatives and progressives are weighing in on Thursday’s employment statistics for Wisconsin.

The state Department of Workforce Development reported that slightly more than 28,000 private sector jobs were created in the state last year. That’s the lowest annual total of Gov. Scott Walker’s three years in office.

Nearly 30,000 jobs were created in 2011, and 34,000 were added in 2012. Approximately 92,000 private-sector jobs have been created under Walker’s watch. At that pace, Wisconsin is poised to add more than 122,000 jobs by the time Walker’s first four-year term ends -- well short of his 2010 campaign promise to create 250,000 private-sector jobs.

DWD officials also reported that the state’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 percent. It was 5.9 percent in March.

“I think it’s clear we’re moving in the right direction,” said West Bend Daily News conservative columnist Owen Robinson. “Adding jobs is better than losing them.”

However, Robinson also said he wants to see more jobs created faster and for the jobless rate to fall further.

He also blamed the national economy for holding Wisconsin back. He stated that the country is not adding enough jobs to keep up with the growing population, and that too many people have simply given up looking for work.

“As part of the nation, we face those same headwinds. We’re still in the same nation, we’re still fighting those same things,” Robinson said.

One Wisconsin Now executive director Scot Ross called the employment numbers “another piece of really bad news” for state residents.

“Wisconsin, despite Gov. Walker getting every single thing he wants from tax breaks for rich people and corporations to the biggest cuts to public education in our state’s history (…) the result has been a total failure for the people of Wisconsin,” Ross said.

Ross also criticized Walker’s decision to turn the department of commerce into the quasi-private Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation.

“That agency has been rife with cronyism, corruption and incompetence,” he said.

Ross added that WEDC has funneled money to Walker and Republican donors, and that tax breaks that have been doled out through WEDC have been unproductive.

Editor’s note: The “Week in Review” can be heard each Friday at 8 a.m. on the Ideas Network of Wisconsin Public Radio.