way. >> Reporting from Madison.
I'm Zac Schultz for "Here& Now".
>> Wisconsin's unemployment rate sits at 3.5%. That's
lower than the national average. But for people
newly entering the job market like recent
graduates, what are their prospects? Is the labor
market cooling and what role does AI have? That's a
lot of questions. We take them to Scott Hodek,
economist with the state Department of Workforce
Development. And thanks >> Yeah, absolutely. Thank
you. >> So what does the
Wisconsin labor market look like right now for new
entrants into it? >> And we're seeing some
deceleration, some slowing at the national level. And,
you know, a couple that with with rising prices,
which are a real drag on the economy and some of the
other indicators that show some changing spending
patterns and, you know, flattening trend in real
disposable income, savings rates, things like that.
And we're definitely seeing then, you know, a slowing
national economy. And of course, then in Wisconsin,
we feel that as well. When I, when I look though at at
our overall labor market, there are there are some
bright spots too. I mean, like you noted, we, we do
have a historically low unemployment rate. So if
you look at, say, national job openings, data, you do
tend to see that there the higher rates and the
separation rates tend to be really tight together. But
there's still, you know, a relatively speaking, a
decent amount of openings. We've had plenty of times
in the past where we've had, you know, technological
change. And that definitely does cause some disruption.
We've actually done work for the Governor's task
force on AI and looked into where there's exposure
amongst these occupations to AI, and there's a lot
there. There will be a lot of exposure, but it doesn't
necessarily indicate substitution. And a lot of
cases it will be folks working with AI. And that's
that's something we're already seeing. That said,
new grads have always adapted, and there are a
lot of job openings out there. And given
demographics just with the retirement of the baby
boomers, there are a lot of positions coming open that
are simply because of retirements. So there there
actually are a lot of openings and opportunities
out there. It's just a matter of kind of
connecting to them. >> What are the so-called
hot jobs right now? >> Yeah, a couple of the
industries. And again, so I'm going to base this off
growth, but we're seeing a lot of growth in health
care. And that makes sense with an aging population,
but also with retirements. And we're seeing a lot of
growth in construction as well. And you might you
might look at construction and say, okay, well, that's,
that's mostly manual labor. And it's there is a lot of
that, but it's not always the case as well. There's
skilled trades like electricians and plumbers,
there's machine operators, and then you've got the
larger companies that do require accountants and it.
And so you do have a lot of different occupations mixed
in in these fields that have been doing well. But
also, you know, if you look at manufacturing over the
over the last few years, it's been a downward trend
in employment. And honestly, over throughout the the
past decades, we've seen staggered drops in
employment, in manufacturing, which we've
seen nationally as well. This is a kind of a
developed world sort of trend. But what we do see
is that there are still there's still difficulty
hiring into, into manufacturing as well. And
it's, it we're looking at a ton of employment in
Wisconsin and a ton of a ton of output and
contribution to our gross domestic product here. So
there are a lot of positions there that are
open as well, but we don't necessarily think about
that sometimes as job seekers. Like, is this
industry growing? If not, should I not apply there?
And the truth is, there's so many retirements across
a lot of these different industries that it's it's
more a matter of thinking of finding kind of the
occupations that fit. Right. >> So what are your long
term projections for trends? The economy? I mean, are
people like you looking at potential recession?
>> Well, we don't really speculate on on what we're
going to see in the future. What I can tell you is that
the trend right now has been has been slowing. That
said, if if you were to just sort of grab news
articles around the country, you would see that that
while that some economists are projecting that it'll
climb back up, some are projecting that it will
have we'll have lower GDP this this year. And there
there are not actually a ton of them calling for a
recession immediately. Again, you know, that
doesn't necessarily mean that we won't have one or
or that one isn't coming. But what I see right now,
what I can see right now is what I can tell you. And
that's that we're seeing a slowing economy. But even
despite all the, the, the pushback from things like,
you know, tariffs, the war in Iran, rising prices,
things like that, we're still seeing growth and
we're still seeing low unemployment rates. And and
here in Wisconsin, we can look at our unemployment
insurance claims data. And we're still seeing that on
trend and below the last couple of years as well. So
so there, yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's difficult to say
with all the volatility and uncertainty right now, what
we'll see going forward. >> Yeah, indeed. All right.