Abigail Shimniok

After multiple reports of Wisconsin’s workforce dramatically falling, the UW Board of Regents approved $32 million for “engineering, nursing/health care, business/finance and computer/data science” fields for the UW campuses.
“By 2032, our state will need another 5,200 computer scientists, 5,500 business and finance professionals, 9,700 nurses and other medical specialists, and 2,800 engineers above and beyond what we currently graduate. While workforce shortages exist across multiple industries, these four fields are the focus of the UW’s workforce plan,” Regent and chair of Business and Finance Committee Ashok Rai said.
With the plan, UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee will receive around $2.5 million each and the other UW schools will receive around $1 million annually for the biennium.
“Once fully phased-in, these initiatives are projected to provide the Wisconsin workforce with an additional 9,350 graduates over a five-year period across these high-demand fields,” a press release from the Universities of Wisconsin said. “UW universities already deliver nearly 15,000 graduates into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and health careers each year. That is close to 40% of all degrees awarded by the Universities of Wisconsin overall and reflects a 30% increase over the past 10 years.”
Currently, Wisconsin is facing the highest shortages of truck drivers, maintenance workers and registered nurses, totaling to 140,000 open positions according to the Public Broadcasting Service-Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Policy Forum reported in 2019 that the workforce has been dropping due to the working-age shrinking. Population in general has been decreasing within Wisconsin within recent years by 3.4%.
The workforce shortage is not only seen in Wisconsin but nationally. There are about six million people that are unemployed and nine million job openings in 2024.