Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Monday, September 01, 2008
Info tech jobs lead state labor outlook
MADISON — There’s little to cheer about this Labor Day for many Wisconsin workers.
In the past year, from July 2007 to July 2008, the state has lost 12,000 non-farm jobs, with two of the mainstay manufacturing industries — paper and autos — suffering massive layoffs and plant closings. Construction employment over the past 12 months is down 3 percent from the previous 12-month period.
“Since the mid-1970s, economic growth has become a spectator sport, generating gains for the few, and already rich, and leaving everyone else behind,” says a new report by the Center on Wisconsin Strategy at UW-Madison.
But there are some types of businesses whose prospects remain strong, even in the face of high fuel prices, rising raw-material costs and worldwide competition.
“Information technology is a sector that’s growing by leaps and bounds,” said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. “There’s significant demand for everything from computer programmers to software designers and network engineers.”
Projections by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show nearly 150,000 technology jobs will have been created nationwide between 2002 and 2012, about twice the expected 70,000 people who will earn college degrees in the field during that time.
Another growing employment field in the state involves environmentally oriented businesses. “I think there’s a real surge of that in Wisconsin,” Still said. Among the entries in this year’s Governor’s Business Plan Contest, 20 percent of the finalists were clean-tech companies, he said.
But for those in other fields, the outlook is gloomier, said Laura Dresser, labor economist. “What you have is clearly a down direction in jobs over the last 12 months,” she said.
Across Wisconsin, businesses of nearly all types have closed factories and reduced staff this year.
General Motors slashed employment at its Janesville plant by more than 1,000 since June and plans to halt production entirely, sometime in 2009. In June, Domtar closed its Port Edwards paper mill, affecting 500 jobs. NewPage is closing its Kimberly paper mill, eliminating 475 jobs.
Even Harley-Davidson, celebrating its 105th anniversary this summer, is cutting more than 700 positions, about half of them in Milwaukee.
Most area construction industry unions say they have people on layoff, said Jim Cavanaugh, president of the South Central Federation of Labor.
“There was a period of time in this decade when people were coming from other parts of the country to work here because so much construction was going on,” he said.
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