As Wisconsin’s workforce shrinks, how to attract talented youth is the debate

Gov. Walker focusing on training, drug tests, while analyst say focus on quality of life.

When it comes to addressing a looming labor shortage crisis in Wisconsin, the tried-and-true methods might not work.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has pointed to workforce development as his top priority moving forward. His plans seem to focus less on improving quality of life and more on tech school training and drug testing.

That way of thinking isn’t going to solve the problem if you ask Mark O’Donnell, the executive director of the Wisconsin Counties Association. And that’s because the newer generations don’t value the same aspects of life, suggests O’Donnell.

Unlike those retiring baby boomers, he believes cities need to appeal to younger generations’ quality-of-life concerns.

“We lived to work” O’Donnell said of the baby boomers. Millennials and Zs are different. They wake up every morning and they work because they’ve got something better to do, called living.”

“We look at the motivating factors for the millennials and the Zs, it’s quality of life issues. It’s diversity, it’s night life, it’s continuing education not even for a degree, it’s recreation opportunities. It’s all of those things.”

Analysts agree a worker shortage is, of course, bad for prospects of economy growth. How to deal with it is where they disagree.

“If we want to attract the new millennial workforce of tomorrow, invest in our communities, and make them attractive to that smart, young talent, which is the No. 1 resource for private-sector profit,” O’Donnell said.

The most optimistic predictions have the state’s available workforce remaining flat over the next 15 years – bleaker outlooks have that workforce shrinking by 40 percent.