Wisconsin's job market has shifted since Great Recession

Wisconsin has been adding more higher-paying jobs than lower-wage positions during its recovery from the Great Recession, but to keep it up, the state will need to increase its output of better-educated workers, a report released Monday says.

The state has added nearly 72,000 jobs since its pre-recession peak, according to a study by the Wisconsin Policy Forum that looks at the number and types of jobs created between 2008 and 2018.

Four of the five occupational groups that have generated the most jobs pay a median annual wage of at least $60,000, while jobs with lower pay — with one big exception — have decreased.

The exception is personal care and service workers, which includes personal care aides, barbers/hair stylists and child care workers. That occupational category has seen the most growth over the decade, the latest data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates.

At $23,870 a year, personal care and services was the second-lowest paying job category, behind only food preparation and serving positions.

In all, personal care and services accounted for 42,240 new jobs between 2008 and 2018. Next were business and financial operations, with growth of 28,710 positions; computer and mathematical jobs, at 25,720; healthcare practitioners, with 23,480; and management, at 19,390.

The biggest decrease in jobs was among office and administrative support workers, with 28,580 positions going away. Sales and jobs related to sales fell by 19,740 over the decade, while building and grounds cleaning and maintenance positions slipped by 8,980 and transportation and materials employees dropped 8,180.

Employment in the 11 highest-compensated occupational groups, which each paying median wages of $42,000 or more a year, grew by a combined 114,870 jobs in Wisconsin. Employment in the 11 lowest-paying job categories, offering a median annual wage of less than $42,000, declined by 42,990, the report said. 

The Wisconsin Policy Forum said while there has been a shift toward better-paying jobs overall in the state, those types of positions typically require higher levels of education and training. That means the state needs to increase education efforts to meet future workforce demands, the group said.

"We need the education system to be turning out those skilled workers, but then we need the overall climate of the state to be such that they stay here and don't take that human capital someplace else,"Jason Stein, research director of the Wisconsin Policy Forum, said in an interview.

The advantage in educational levels shows up clearly when growth in computer and mathematical occupations in the Madison and metro Milwaukee areas are compared. While employment in those occupations has more than doubled in the Madison metro area over 10 years, growth has been slower in Milwaukee and the Green Bay areas. 

Although metro Milwaukee and its workforce are more than twice the size of Madison, the capital city area last year had 24,490 workers in computer and mathematical occupations, while metro Milwaukee had 26,940.

Local business leaders in the metro Milwaukee see the problem, and have launched efforts to bring more tech workers to the area and keep them here. Six of the metro area's large employers this fall announced the MKE Tech Hub Coalition, a not-for-profit initiative with more than $5 million committed by the member companies. The goal of the group is to double the number of Milwaukee's technology workers by 2025.

The founding companies of the MKE Tech Hub Coalition, led by Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., are Accenture, Advocate Aurora Health, Johnson Controls, Kohl's and Rockwell Automation.

Having the University of Wisconsin is a big asset for Madison, where 44.8% of adults 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher. That compared with 34.5% in metro Milwaukee and 27.1% in the Green Bay area.

Overall, Wisconsin lags other states in attracting and retaining the most-educated workers, who tend to be more mobile than other populations, the non-partisan group said.

“Spreading the benefits of the strengthening economy to other parts of the state likely will require increased college completion in those areas, which in turn may necessitate improved educational outcomes at the K-12 level,” the report concluded.

The big drop-off in office and administrative support jobs likely reflects technology's displacement of workers such as secretaries, administrative assistants, bank tellers and typists, Stein said.