State forms work group to curb unemployment

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Paul Snyder
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Lawmakers, faced with Wisconsin’s 8.3 percent unemployment rate, are forming another work group to talk about the problem.

That’s not good enough, said state Rep. Rich Zipperer, R-Pewaukee.

“I think there’s a lot of frustration on the part of the private sector,” he said, “in the sense that the policies the state has put in place haven’t really fostered growth.”

But it’s the development of stronger ties to private businesses and the potential for job growth that prompted the formation of the work group, said Assembly Speaker Michael Sheridan, D-Janesville.

Sheridan on Monday announced the formation of the work group, which will include lawmakers, labor union leaders and private business representatives who will create new strategies for business growth and job expansion.

The state Senate and Assembly have bipartisan committees working on job growth and economic development, and lawmakers throughout the year have pushed bills that would foster job creation and expanded training

Still, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of State Statistics reported an employment drop of 21,700 in Wisconsin between August and September. The state’s unemployment rate remains lower than the national 9.8 percent average, but Sheridan said he knows there are a lot of construction workers in the state awaiting job opportunities.

If the state cannot provide the work, he said, then state leaders need to find ways to encourage the private sector to produce it.

Yet there is no guarantee a work group will put those workers back on sites, said John Mielke, vice president of the Associated Builders & Contractors of Wisconsin Inc.

“It is time for action, but what action that is, I don’t think anybody knows,” he said. “If it were a simple problem, it would’ve been solved already.

“Sometimes trying to attract economic development is like spinning your wheels. You talk about programs and incentives and ways to grow, but it still ends up being a matter of the stars aligning just right.”

Talking cannot hurt, but it has yet to get people onto job sites, said Terry McGowan, business manager for the Operating Engineers Local 139.

“If they get the private sector involved, that’s great, but if nobody’s lending money for projects, we still have a problem,” he said. “I remember in January people asking me if I could retrain autoworkers to build roads, and I still have 500 people on the bench right now.

“At this point it’s not so much what I hear anymore, it’s about what I see.”