SHEBOYGAN, WI (WHBL) - Governor Scott Walker made his latest visit to the Sheboygan area to speak at the Sheboygan County Chamber’s First Friday Forum.
During his roughly 30 minute speech, Walker took time to recap the current economic status of Wisconsin. That included highlighting the unemployment rate, one of the lowest in years, the percentage of Wisconsin adults currently in the workforce, one of the highest in the nation, and the overall number of people with jobs in Wisconsin, at or near a record high.
Still, Walker said the accomplishments are not keeping him from trying to make things better. “We’re not done yet. It’s not missing accomplished, but the state of our state is strong and we’re looking for ways to make it even stronger.”
With that in mind, Walker took the rest of his speech to highlights efforts to try to get people to take careers in areas of the state’s workforce that have job openings now. This theme tied in to the purpose of the First Friday Forum, which was to highlight the new “Someplace Better” initiative to get people to move to Sheboygan County to take jobs that are and will be open.
Walker said the shortage of workers in parts of Wisconsin’s job market is a reason why he wants more state resources to go towards educations, with a focus to give students the jump start they need to get a job in the career they want. In addition to the current programs such as duel enrollment, one way Walker wants to do this is having an academic and career plan program in every school district that would starts for students as early as middle school. “We want students, not just in high school, not just six months out from graduation, not even just a year or two, we want students to start thinking about as early as middle school so that they’re thinking about the courses they might want to take in both junior high and then ultimately in high school to get ready for their career path.”
Walker also spoke about the need for higher education costs to be lower. While some want to focus on the interest rates for student loans, Walker said it’s more important to find ways to keep students from accumulating high debt such as plans proposed like three-year degrees and apprenticeships. “If you got 30 or 40-thousand dollars of debt, I don’t care what the interest rate is that’s hard to pay off. One of the best ways to deal with student loan debt obligations is to keep the cost down in the first place.”
Overall, Walker says a goal for him is to get people to fill the jobs that are available now and continue what he says the strong economic standing in Wisconsin. “There are tremendous opportunities today for great careers as we speak, we just need to find the people with the skills sets to fill those; to get them the education and the qualifications and the training that they need to succeed.”