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When Jobs Don’t Matter (As Much): My takeaway from Legislative Days

Economic development is the hallmark of Legislative Days. Sure, there are issues such as clean water and the school start date that might be understood as social or environmental, but they’re not presented that way.

We don’t argue for clean water because it makes the lake look pretty, we say dirty water and closed beaches threaten our tourism industry. We don’t say our children would rather go back to school after Labor Day so they can swim one more week in the slightly warmer lake, we claim an earlier school start date would take away our workforce and decrease tourism revenue.

So what happens when the pendulum swings too far in the other direction?

The unemployment rate in Wisconsin is 3.7 percent. Most labor economists say 5.5 percent is full employment, putting Wisconsin in the category of a workforce shortage. There are more jobs available than people to work them.

After the 2008 financial crisis, Wisconsin’s unemployment rate was nearly 10 percent. Whether you think the recovery is thanks to the Scott Walker administration or in spite of it, I don’t really care. The fact is, we don’t need more jobs, we need good people to work them.

One of the solutions could be better education. We can train kids and teens in Wisconsin to fill those gaps. Unfortunately, the number of students in the state is a fraction of the number of baby boomers nearing retirement.

Instead, I suggest the key to this new workforce shortage edition of economic development is immigration and retention, and that is only achieved by making Wisconsin a better place to live, not just work.

The Walker administration has reduced funding to some state programs that fall under the umbrella of social, cultural and recreational opportunities, or what I would call quality of life outside of a good job. Again, I won’t claim these moves were right or wrong, but I see an opportunity for those social, cultural and recreational organizations to now make a stronger pitch for state support.

As a 24-year-old, I’ll try to speak for the workforce of millennials when I say that we like to live by parks, theaters, festivals, educational opportunities and cultural diversity. In Wisconsin, we have the jobs. Now we want something to do for the other 128 hours of the week.

I won’t claim to know what exactly today’s workforce wants outside of work. If it were up to me, the state would invest millions into development of cycling routes and library systems. But I believe any organization that claims to improve the quality of life instead of work has a stronger pitch than ever to receive a little more love from the state.

In Door County, that could mean affordable housing. In Milwaukee I guess it means a new Bucks arena. Either way, those agencies, organizations and departments that are first on the chopping block when times get tough now have the opportunity to seek funding since job creation is no longer a priority for the state.

Communities should argue that their new venue, public program or park is for the purpose of attracting the workforce that now eludes us. The state doesn’t have to invest so vigorously in Wisconsin jobs. Now what matters is Wisconsin life.

Some might even call that economic development.

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