A hiring sign in the Fox Valley Dec. 28, 2022. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Wisconsin is experiencing record low unemployment numbers.
While fewer people are looking for work, that means those businesses still needing to fill jobs could have a more difficult time.
A job fair was held at the Brown County Library’s east branch in Green Bay on Thursday.
For Tina Jensen, she’s looking to find the right fit for a job in administration.
“There are a lot of places hiring and it seems the job market has changed to where employers are getting pickier right now,” said Jensen.
Area businesses, like PMI Entertainment Group, say it’s been difficult to acquire talent for operations at the Resch Center.
“Ever since COVID the challenge has been greater I think to find help, and I think a lot of companies would say that,” said Terry Charles, Senior Manager of Corporate Communications for PMI Entertainment Group.
Their largest struggle has been finding part-time workers.
“I think COVID what it taught us is that some people when they couldn’t have that part-time job and we were all closed down, they found out that ‘Hey life isn’t so bad, you know not doing a part-time job,’ so some people didn’t come back,” said Charles.
Across Wisconsin, unemployment figures are low.
According to Wisconsin’s Department of Workforce Development, preliminary data shows the statewide unemployment rate was 3% in February.
“By any historical standard I should say yeah we are practically at a record low unemployment rate,” said Ryan Long, a Regional Economist with the DWD.
That is down 0.2 percentage points from the month of January.
February’s unemployment rate is also lower than the national rate of 3.9%.
In Brown County, the rate was 2.9% February, which is up half a percent from January.
While low unemployment numbers are encouraging, it’s been a struggle to fill open job positions.
“We have this, you know silver tsunami of the baby boomer generation that’s retiring out of the labor force and it really seemed like we didn’t have the numbers to fully replace those vacated positions,” said Long.
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