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Wisconsin's unemployment rates, it's at 3.5 percent.

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That's lower than the national average.

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But for people newly entering the job market, like recent graduates, what are their prospects?

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Is the labor market cooling and what role does AI have?

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That's a lot of questions.

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We take them to Scott Hodeck, economist with the State Department of Workforce Development.

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And thanks very much for being here.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Thank you.

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So what does the Wisconsin labor market look like right now for new entrants into it?

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Well, the first thing I would say is that we're responding to the national trend, which

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is a cooling economy, like you noted.

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We've been seeing gross domestic product drop from 2.8 percent in 2024 to 2.2 and 2025.

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And then so far in the first quarter of 2026, we're at 1.6.

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So we are seeing, we're seeing some deceleration, some slowing at the national level.

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And you know, a couple of that with rising prices, which are a real drag on the economy.

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And some of the other indicators that show some changing spending patterns and flattening

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trend and real disposable income, savings rates, things like that.

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And we're definitely seeing then a slowing national economy.

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And of course, then in Wisconsin, we feel that as well.

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When I look though at our overall labor market, there are some bright spots too.

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I mean, like you noted, we do have a historically low unemployment rate.

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So if you look at, say, national job openings data, you do tend to see that the higher rates

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and the separation rates tend to be really tight together.

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But they're still, you know, relatively speaking, a decent amount of openings.

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So it's, while we have slowed, there are still openings out there.

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And we've had plenty of times in the past where we've had, you know, technological change.

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And that definitely does cause some disruption, whether that be in some shifts in businesses

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as they figure out how to, how to kind of change occupations or what they're looking to

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hire in terms of skills, but also for then the new grads and the workers themselves,

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as they're trying to decide, well, what skills do I need?

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And how do I get into the labor force at this point?

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And it's always a little bit tricky graduating as the market's cooling.

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I mean, I did that myself forever ago.

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And it is a little difficult, but students and new grads adapt.

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And that's what's always happened in the past.

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Now, the question with AI is often, well, are we going to see a situation where AI substitutes

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for so many jobs that we see something we've never seen before?

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And I can't really answer that.

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We just, we don't have enough data and we don't, everything we see out there, you see

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one thing one day, one thing in the next.

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And so while this is something that the Department of Workforce Development is aware of, and

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we've actually done work for the governor's task force on AI and looked into where there's

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exposure amongst these occupations to AI, and there's a lot.

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There will be a lot of exposure, but it doesn't necessarily indicate substitution.

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In a lot of cases, it will be folks working with AI.

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And that's something we're already seeing.

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And so at least right now, what we're seeing in the data is that it has been a little

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tougher for new grads to find work.

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That's not unusual, like I said, in a down period, but we are seeing some indications

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that there may be some other things going on there.

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But that said, new grads have always adapted and there are a lot of job openings out there.

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And given demographics, just with the retirement of the baby boomers, there are a lot of positions

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coming open that are simply because of retirements.

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So there actually are a lot of openings and opportunities out there.

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It's just a matter of kind of connecting to them.

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What are the so-called hot jobs right now?

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Yeah, a couple of the industries, and again, so I'm going to base this off growth, but

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we're seeing a lot of growth in healthcare, and that makes sense with an aging population,

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but also with retirements.

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And we're seeing a lot of growth in construction as well.

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And you might look at construction and say, okay, well, that's mostly manual labor.

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And there is a lot of that, but it's not always the case as well.

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There's skilled trades like electricians and plumbers, there's machine operators.

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And then you've got the larger companies that do require accountants and ITs.

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So you do have a lot of different occupations mixed in these fields that have been doing

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well.

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But also, if you look at manufacturing over the last few years, it's been a downward trend

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in employment.

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And honestly, throughout the past decades, we've seen staggered drops in employment in

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manufacturing, which we've seen nationally as well.

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This is kind of a developed world sort of trend.

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But what we do see is that there's still difficulty hiring into manufacturing as well.

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And we're looking at a ton of employment in Wisconsin and a ton of output and contribution

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to our gross domestic product here.

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So there are a lot of positions there that are open as well.

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But we don't necessarily think about that sometimes as job seekers, like, is this industry

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growing?

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If not, should I not apply there?

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And the truth is, there's so many retirements across a lot of these different industries

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that it's more a matter of thinking of finding kind of the occupations that fit, right?

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So what are your long-term projections for trends of the economy?

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I mean, are people like you looking at potential recession?

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Well, we don't really speculate on what we're going to see in the future.

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What I can tell you is that the trend right now has been slowing.

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That said, if you were to just sort of grab news articles around the country, you would

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see that while that some economists are projecting that it'll climb back up, some are projecting

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that it will have lower GDP this year, and there are not actually a ton of them calling

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for a recession immediately.

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Again, that doesn't necessarily mean that we won't have one or that one isn't coming.

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But what I can see right now is what I can tell you, and that's that we're seeing a slowing

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economy.

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But even despite all the pushback from things like tariffs, the war in Iran rising prices,

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like that, we're still seeing growth, and we're still seeing low unemployment rates.

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And here in Wisconsin, we can look at our unemployment insurance claims data, and we're

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still seeing that on trend and below the last couple of years as well.

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So it's difficult to say with all the volatility and uncertainty right now what we'll see going

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forward.

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Yeah, indeed.

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All right.

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Well, Scott Hodeck, thanks so much.

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Absolutely.

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Thank you.

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Wow, you are good at your job.

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Thank you.

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I appreciate it.

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You like it.

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Kind of going to make me blush, I think.

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We really appreciate the info.

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Yeah.

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We'll call on you again, sir.

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Well, I'd be happy to get an information out there is important, so I appreciate what

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you do.

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Thank you.

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All right.

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Enjoy this beautiful weekend.

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Yeah, you too.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Bye.