COMMENTARY: Celebrating Wisconsin`s innovation in workforce development

For more than 110 years, Wisconsin has been a leader in workforce innovation, advancing ideas to cultivate a workforce that remains the envy of the nation.

Today, that powerful cycle of worker productivity, economic growth, job creation and workforce training has contributed to a labor force participation rate that — at 66.5% — is a full 4.8 percentage points higher than the national rate of 61.7 percent.

And our statewide unemployment rate? At 3.9% we’re approaching our pre-pandemic levels. The seasonally adjusted numbers from August remain well below the national rate of 5.2%.

When Wisconsin pioneered laws to compensate injured workers and programs to train workers through registered apprenticeship programs back in 1911, and when Wisconsin became the first state to enact unemployment compensation benefits in 1932, our workers gained important recognition for their critical role in a thriving economy....
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