Local jobs: Top five cities leading the turnaround

3. Wausau, Wis. – down 2.7 percentage points

Clint Austin/Duluth News-Tribune/MCT/Newscom/File
Early on a Saturday morning in 2009, Rick Moss, of Wausau, Wis., casts a fly towards shore on Wisconsin's Brule River. He and his friend Tom Heffernan, of Port Wing, were spending Wisconsin's fishing opener on the river.

With a county population of around 125,000, Wausau, Wis., has preserved a small-town feel with 37 parks and 10 forests within the county, which span 28,000 acres. In February 2010, Wausau’s metro unemployment rate was nearly a point above the national average; now, it’s a full point below it. One factor is the manufacturing sector, which lost 2,000 jobs in 2009 but has since recovered 700 of them.

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