WEDC CEO Hughes says several factors at play in state’s worker shortage

Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. Secretary and CEO Missy Hughes acknowledged that some businesses are having a hard time finding help, but said data doesn’t support the idea that extra unemployment benefits are keeping people out of the workforce.

“There’s a lot of complex factors at work in this worker shortage, all kind of umbrellaed by the demographic challenge that we have in Wisconsin, which is an aging population,” Hughes said in an interview aired Sunday on “UpFront,” produced in partnership with WisPolitics.com.

Hughes said people still on the sidelines after the pandemic are not able to find child care, transportation or have other obstacles.

She said the lack of J-1 visas, which allow workers to come in from other countries, also is hurting some businesses...
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Ken Notes: She is very intelligent but the task of providing the right workforce for the jobs needing workers is beyond the scope of WEDC. She even made comments about the 5K, her position is: “When you infuse money in the local economy, you can see those dollars turn over eight times within the community. So it’s really a magnifier and a multiplier effect we’re looking for with that $5,000.”

The problem is that some will not reinvest the funds where it will do the most good and others will not have enough to reinvest anything. I am old, in the 80`s we called this trickle down economics..