Gov. Scott Walker says Wisconsin's economy is headed in the right direction, even as the state continues to trail the nation and most of its Midwest neighbors in job growth.

Numbers released yesterday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Wisconsin ranked 35th in the nation in private sector job growth in the 12-month period ending last September. The numbers come from the Bureau's Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, which economists call the “gold standard” of job measures.

Overall, the state added more than 28,000 private sector jobs during the period. Walker told reporters that coupled with previous job gains, it was still an improvement over the years before he took office.

“I think in comparison, people will look at that and say, compared to where things were in the past — not just in the recent past but even years back — we're doing much better than we have been previously,” Walker said.

Compared to most of its neighbors, however, Wisconsin continued to lag. Michigan, Minnesota and Iowa all added jobs at a faster rate, as did the nation as a whole.

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State Democratic Party spokeswoman Melissa Baldauff noted that Wisconsin also lost more than 700 manufacturing jobs.

“I don't think that any struggling Wisconsin families would say that that's dramatically better,” Baldauff said.

Marquette University economist Abdur Chowdry said these numbers show things are not getting better in the way that people would like to see. Chowdry said the state was not adding jobs nearly fast enough to hit Walker's goal of 250,000 jobs in his first term: “At this point,” he said, “it's almost mathematically impossible to achieve 250,000 jobs.”

The next time these detailed numbers get released will be in June, which will give the clearest picture yet of how jobs have fared during Walker's first three years in office.