Here & Now

William Delwiche Analyzes Wisconsin Jobs Numbers

Frederica Freyberg:

Wisconsin’s economy continues it’s prodding trend upwards. The latest number from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, considered the most reliable measure, show Wisconsin has moved up to 35th in the nation for private sector job growth from the last ranking of 37th. We go now to Milwaukee for some analysis of the new numbers from R.W. Baird Investment strategist, William Delwiche. Thanks very much for being here.

William Delwiche:

Thanks for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, again, we’ve moved up to 35th. It's obviously a spot of good news, but I guess we keep hoping for kind of some bigger jump. What’s going on?

William Delwiche:

Well, I think part of it is an overall national trend of employment growth just being really dismal right now. And so it’s affecting us in Wisconsin specifically, but really the bigger picture is job growth overall remains really, really lackluster. And that’s an issue for the overall economy. It's an issue for the US– Or for the Wisconsin economy, specifically.

Frederica Freyberg:

And yet we also lag the nation, right?

William Delwiche:

Yeah, well, some of that is– comes from historical tendencies within the Wisconsin economy. We tend to be a less dynamic economy than the nation as a whole. We go up less, we go down less. But then I think we also have some carry over from some of the political issues from a couple years ago, the uncertainties surrounding Governor Walker’s Act 10. And the fallout from that just created, at least temporarily, an environment where I think employers didn’t want to hire people. Entrepreneurs didn't want to start new businesses. We didn’t see that inflow of new job growth.

Frederica Freyberg:

And that’s a carry-over, not something that kind of persists? Because you would think that by now we’d be kind of away from that situation of uncertainty.

William Delwiche:

Yeah, I think there’s a lag there. And I think we should start to see some improvement in coming months where the Wisconsin economy starts to pick up. Hopefully it gets a tailwind from the US economy in kind of a better economy lifts all boats, and Wisconsin really starts to benefit. But there’s a lot of work to be done, and I think there’s more that can be done in the near term to improve the situation.

Frederica Freyberg:

Like what?

William Delwiche:

Well, I think we need to focus more on retraining our workers so that we kind of resolve this mismatch that we see, particularly in Wisconsin, between skilled jobs that are available and unskilled workers who don’t have jobs. We need to rectify that so that we can match up jobs with workers more efficiently. And that’s not happening right now in Wisconsin, or in the US as a whole.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, it must be positive news then that I know the legislature just approved more money for worker training to do just what you speak of.

William Delwiche:

Yeah, I think that’s exactly what needs to happen. We need to really focus on pairing schools and manufacturers, specifically, under the umbrella of a government-incentivized action. But really start to work towards that system where we train workers for jobs that are available rather than having them graduate from college and not be able to find a job.

Frederica Freyberg:

So are all of these things involved when you look at how Wisconsin compares to its regional neighbors, whereby we are above only Illinois in terms of job growth. Michigan has grown jobs twice as fast, I understand. All these states surrounding us are doing better. Is it all of those things, the lag of uncertainty and the mismatch in training that puts us there, or is there more?

William Delwiche:

Well, I think the other thing to consider is that we haven’t — We didn’t really fall as far as some of other states did during the recession, so we’re not bouncing back at the same rate that they are. If you look at the jobs picture from an unemployment rate perspective, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate is below the national average. So that’s a kind of a good news side of this whole discussion.

Frederica Freyberg:

So brighter skies ahead, both in the weather and economy, you think?

William Delwiche:

Hopefully. And I think once we get into summer then we’ll start to get a much better feel for how the overall economy’s shaping up.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right, great. Thanks very much for joining us. William Delwiche, out of Milwaukee.

William Delwiche:

Thanks a lot.