MADISON, Wis. -- More Wisconsin businesses closed or laid off a significant amount of their workers in 2011 than a year earlier, state data indicated.

There were 87 new plant closings and mass layoffs through Dec. 29, according to the state Department of Workforce Development, which tracks the data. There were 71 such events in 2010.

The number of people affected dipped slightly, to 6,798 workers, from 6,945 a year earlier, although the data doesn't include a Sears store closing in West Baraboo.

But the state's own data may not be as accurate as federal numbers, which indicate the number of events and people affected actually fell in 2011, a state Department of Workforce Development spokesman told WISC-TV.

Even so, the dozens of companies on the layoff lists found the economy difficult last year, said Seth Lentz, deputy director of the Workforce Development Board of South Central Wisconsin. The agency, which is federally funded, aids dislocated workers after layoff events.

"Companies are saying, 'We've struggled through it. We've got this far. We're as lean as possible. We can't go any leaner, and going any leaner is going to break us,'" Lentz said.

The layoffs are about one-third the total in 2009, when companies across Wisconsin slashed nearly 19,000 jobs in mass layoffs and plant closings, state data indicates.

However, the numbers came into question by the very agency that tracks them. John Dipko, a Department of Workforce Development spokesman, said federal data were actually a better representation of the state's layoff picture.

Figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate Wisconsin had 107 mass layoff events through the first three quarters of 2011, down from 113 in the first three quarters of 2010. The numbers for 2011 were preliminary, and were the latest available because figures for the most recent quarter hadn't yet been released.

Federal data also indicated Wisconsin saw a dramatic drop in mass layoffs in the past two years compared with 2009, a historically bad year for many companies.

Many workers who lost their jobs then are still looking now. Combined with new layoffs, affected workers are finding it necessary to take multiple jobs to make ends meet, Lentz said.

"The workplace is not what the workplace was," he said. "The jobs aren't the same, the skills needed aren't the same."

The Workforce Development Board holds sessions across the area for dislocated workers, pointing them in the right direction to collect unemployment benefits, get retrained and enhance their resumes.

But some, such as Tim and Barb Sullivan of Pardeeville, said that's not enough.

Barb lost her job more than one year ago, and Tim, 62, just found out his employer, Brown Shoe's Famous Footwear Distribution Center in Sun Prairie, would close this year.

"The budget's tight," Tim Sullivan said. "You know, we're surviving. And that's my goal, is to keep us above water."

Barb Sullivan, 56, said it's increasingly difficult for older workers, such as herself, to find work. She's attending the Wiser Older Workers sessions at Madison Area Technical College, but said she never expected to be looking for work at this time in her life.

"You think you're going on this path, raised your family, your kids, now when you can kind of enjoy life," she said. "Now, we'll probably have to work harder than we did before."

Wisconsin's unemployment rate was 7.3 percent in November, the latest figures available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. About 223,800 people were looking for work, down about 7,300 from the previous November.

To view historical Wisconsin mass layoffs and plant closings, click here.