On Friday, the Northeast Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance and Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development hosted “Winning with Wisconsin’s Workforce,” a broad-reaching, 90-minute forum at Fox Valley Technical College’s DJ Bordini Center.
The event attracted business leaders and advocates from across Northeast Wisconsin and featured remarks from NEWMA and DWD leaders, as well as Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry CEO Sachin Shivaram, Fox Valley Tool & Die CEO Mark Tetzlaff, Goodwill Industries of North Central Wisconsin CEO Chris Hess, and Fox Valley Tech President Chris Matheny.
Speakers discussed a variety of solutions to address Wisconsin’s workforce challenges, including apprenticeships; dual enrollment programs; tapping into underutilized talent pools; enhanced and accelerated workforce training programs; and wraparound services in areas like housing, mental health and child care. But DWD Secretary-Designee Amy Pechacek first set the table for the discussion by quantifying not only the state’s challenges, but the progress it has already made.
“2022 was a record-breaking year for workforce and economic development in Wisconsin,” Pechacek said, noting that the state in 2022 not only had its lowest unemployment number in history, but also a record number of people employed.
It is important to note that those are distinct figures, Pechacek said. Despite the pervasive false narrative about workers sitting on the sideline, she said, “we have more people working in Wisconsin than ever before.”
Nevertheless, worker quantity shortages are being felt at the regional, state, national and even global levels because of low birth rates and baby boomer retirements — fulfilling a prediction that has been discussed since the 1980s and is “only going to get worse until 2030,” Pechacek said.
Wisconsin is weathering the storm better than any other U.S. state, boasting a record surplus of $7 billion and a labor force participation rate that is 2% above the national average — something Pechacek says she attributes largely to Wisconsin’s use of American Rescue Plan Act funding, which was directed in larger proportion to industry than any other state.
“We are literally getting calls from D.C. and other states saying, ‘Wisconsin, how did you do it?’” Pechacek said.
It’s this kind of confidence in Wisconsin’s workforce that has guided decisions by leaders like Shivaram, who shared that Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, which is experiencing unprecedented growth, recently decided to expand its operations in Manitowoc despite having better physical space options in Minnesota and Indiana.
“We decided to do the expansion in Manitowoc specifically because of the workforce,” he said. “I don’t mean to sound cliché, but we have about 400 employees at our Manitowoc location and they are dedicated; they represent every commitment to excellence that Wisconsin’s workforce has.”
Establishing and understanding that the labor shortage amounts to something of a fixed, ongoing challenge, speakers highlighted specific actions happening on the ground in the Badger State to chip away at the problem. David Polk of the DWD’s Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards said the state is in the process of exploring a statewide mentoring program to facilitate training and retention. He also said 2022 was a record-breaking year for youth apprenticeships in the state at 6,400; and with 7,000 already enrolled for 2023, the number is poised to shatter again in 2023.
DWD has long been involved in more “traditional” apprenticeship programs like trades, Polk said, but the trend toward emerging sectors has really fueled the exponential growth.
The need to rapidly train workers in child care and human resources are among the fields that have created the greatest hiring bottlenecks across the state, Polk said.
“We have really focused on HR specialists,” he said. “To have a shortage of people who hire people … it crosses all occupational pathways.”
Hess said Goodwill NCW’s new Career EXCELerate program — a partnership with Fox Valley Tech and Rawhide Youth Services funded in part by a $6.5 million Wisconsin workforce innovation grant — offers one-to-one training and credentialing services to bring Wisconsinites who face employment barriers such as physical and mental disabilities to the workforce on an accelerated timeline; one of the most popular programs has been in child care.
“We had 100 applicants for the spring cohort, and our goal is to train 460 people over the next three years,” Hess said.
Tracy Berger, a DWD business services consultant based in Menasha, closed the event by encouraging all interested members of the business community to tap into the agency’s resources, including newly-expanded digital services such as an online scheduling tool for hiring events. More information is available at https://dwd.wisconsin.gov/business-services/.
