Here & Now

Dale Knapp on Wisconsin's Dwindling Ranks of Younger Workers

Zac Schultz:

A new report says Wisconsin’s workforce is expected to dwindle over the next decade without an increase in outside migration to Wisconsin by 2030, the state’s prime working age population will likely shrink by an estimated 130,000 unless we find a way to keep young people from leaving or convince more families to move here. Joining us now is Dale Knapp, the director of Forward Analytics, a research organization that is part of the Wisconsin Counties Association. Thanks for your time today.

Dale Knapp:

Good to be here.

Zac Schultz:

You used census data to try and track the inflow and outflow from Wisconsin and essentially you found as the baby boomers age into retirement, we have a major shortage.

Dale Knapp:

The first half of the baby boom aged into retirement over the last decade and it’s one of the reasons we are seeing worker shortages now because that had an effect. The second half is now aging into that and they’re about 20% bigger so that is going to — and we don’t have really enough young people coming up behind them to replace them. So the solution — the only solution, if we don’t want to see that big decline, is migration from other states or other countries.

Zac Schultz:

So will this lack or absence of workers be felt more severely in certain areas or will it just be spread across the whole economy?

Dale Knapp:

It will be spread across the whole economy. We’ll see it really everywhere. Probably you’ll see a bigger impact in northern Wisconsin. Northern Wisconsin’s population tends to be older as it is and fewer young people so it will be a little bit more acute there but we’ll see it everywhere.

Zac Schultz:

Your report talks a lot about young people and anyone that grew up in Wisconsin and went to college saw this happen. You go to college and you go explore the world, you move to a big city and some people come back home to raise a family. How do you encourage more of that? Is that a state solution? Is that a business or employer solution?

Dale Knapp:

I think — it’s a public-private kind of working together solution. One, we need to try to limit the number of young people that we’re losing. We’re going to lose a significant number, as you said, they want to get out there. But one of the things we find is when you look at average wages for white collar occupations, the college graduate occupations they’re going into, we tend to be 10% to 15% below the national average. In terms of the business sector, they have to understand that and if they want to keep those young people here, they have to make sure they’re competitive. And I think there’s a role for the state as well. We see states, counties across the country providing incentives for people to move to their states. Maine has been a leader in this. We’re not sure exactly how it looks but there are ways that we can incent people to move here or in case of Wisconsinites that have left, to move back here.

Zac Schultz:

Many of the places you report people are going to, the coasts or the south, are experiencing natural disasters, recurring. We just saw Hurricane Ian, Droughts, wildfires. How much could climate change make Wisconsin more desirable to everyone, not just natives?

Dale Knapp:

There’s increasing discussion around the notion that over time Wisconsin, with all of its water resources, is going to look more and more desirable for individuals and for businesses. So that may play a role in the near term not so much. That’s more of a longer-term pattern I think we may end up seeing.

Zac Schultz:

What can we do to be prepared? Should the state be doing more at this time or is this simply making everyone aware of the solution and let’s all talk about it.

Dale Knapp:

I think the solution to our challenge is really targeting what I call the family formation years. That’s where we’ve always been strong in terms of migration. It’s designing incentives for that age group to move here. And I think it’s also — there’s an education component to this that if you go outside the Midwest, people know very, very little about Wisconsin except that it’s cold and we have cheese and we have the Packers and that’s about it. So part of it is educating them on the quality of life that we have, the great schools we have, the relatively low crime. All of those things that families are looking for because once they know about it and once you get them here, most of them stay. So I think that’s the role that I think the state can play.

Zac Schultz:

And there’s still those of us who say, no, we don’t need any more people. We like the space we have. That’s all the time we have. Dale Knapp with Forward Analytics, thank you for your time.

Dale Knapp:

Thank you for having me.