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Wisconsin ranked 32nd in private-sector job growth among the 50 states in the five-year period that ended in June, new government figures show — a period that effectively encompasses the national hiring recovery since the last recession.

The Badger State increased private-sector jobs by 7.6% during the five-year turnaround, lagging behind the national rate of 11.2%. Wisconsin's ranking of 32nd also placed it behind nearby states in the Midwest: Michigan's job growth during the same stretch ranked 10th, Indiana 18th, Minnesota 20th, Ohio 24th, Iowa 30th and Illinois 31st.

The figures released Thursday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are based on a quarterly census of most American employers, which makes them the most accurate and comprehensive jobs data available. The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages tracks jobs and wages in rolling 12-month increments and is published every three months.

Thursday's release covers the 12 months from the end of June 2014 through the end of June 2015.

In a separate report Thursday, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development said the state's unemployment rate has continued its improvement, falling to its lowest rate since March 2001 — a preliminary 4.2% in November, down from 4.3% in October.

The overall economic climate remains patchy, said Ben Salzmann, president and CEO of Acuity Mutual Insurance Co. in Sheboygan.

"There is some sense of recovery in a fragile environment," Salzmann said.

Acuity has added 700 jobs in the past five years, and the insurer this month announced plans to add another 120 positions. Its corporate campus — home to most of its total 1,176 staffers nationwide — has become a sprawling construction site, which has become as visible along I-43 as its 400-foot-high flagpole.

Acuity mainly insures businesses such as construction subcontractors, grocers and merchants. Construction happens to be one of the fast-recovering sectors. However, Salzmann said, housing starts and overall activity still have not recovered to their peak prior to the 2007-'09 recession, which was triggered when a collapse in real estate triggered a financial meltdown that dragged down the entire economy.

Nationally, government data show that employers didn't begin to add private-sector jobs on a consistent basis until the second half of 2010, a year that began with weak monthly job gains and sometimes even monthly job losses. Adding the latest 12-month rolling census data, that means the five years from June 2010 to June 2015 effectively represent the period since the turnaround from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Politically, the five-year span began with the final six months of the administration of former Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle, a Democrat, and extended into the first two terms so far of his Republican successor, Gov. Scott Walker. Wisconsin has trailed the national rate of job creation since July 2011.

In the 12 months through the end of June, Thursday's data show, Wisconsin gained 30,759 private-sector jobs, a 1.27% increase in employment that ranks the state 37th among the 50 states. The nation as a whole added private-sector jobs at a 2.3% rate in that period.

The quarterly data are based on a census of 96% of the nation's employers in the public and private sectors. That makes the figures far more reliable than monthly jobs data, which are based on a sample of about 3% of employers, leaving monthly estimates prone to large margins of error and revisions.

In its separate report Thursday, the Walker administration emphasized the continued decline in the state's unemployment rate to its current low of 4.2%. In the worst months of the Great Recession, the state jobless rate peaked at 9.2% in 2009 and 2010.

The state's unemployment rate has tracked a parallel decline in the national unemployment rate, which fell to 5.0% in October and November from 5.1% in August and September and a peak of 10% at the worst point in the last downturn.

Wisconsin's unemployment rate consistently has been lower than the U.S. rate since 1985.