MONROE — At Monroe’s award-winning Klondike Cheese, there are plenty of job openings. In fact, says one of the plant’s owners, they would add an entire third shift if they could find the employees to work it.
But in today’s economic climate, it is not likely to happen anytime soon, said Ron Buholzer, of Klondike Cheese, which employs about 250 people at its Monroe plant.
“We joke that there just not enough (workers) and that the only way to get a new employee is to steal one from somebody else,” he said. “Hiring is real tough right now. We struggle to see new applications.”
Such is the nature of our current job market and economy. Despite lingering headwinds in the economy such as inflation, unemployment remains steadily low and in the most recent report, Wisconsin is no exception. Wisconsin’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate stayed at the record-low rate of 2.4% for May, according to the most recent state statistics.
“Unemployment rates surpassed or tied record lows for the month of May in more than half of Wisconsin’s counties and in half of the state’s metro areas,” DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek said. “This speaks to the competitiveness of Wisconsin’s labor market, and it reaffirms the importance of our state’s historic investments in efforts to develop the workforce…”
Total seasonally adjusted nonfarm jobs decreased by 6,400 over the month and increased by 41,200 year-over-year. Private-sector jobs decreased by 7,000 in May and increased by 29,900 over the year. Still, it all makes for a continued tight labor market, even as inflation continues to hurt workers’ spending power and wage increases do not keep up.
Nationwide for the month of May, the U.S. unemployment rate was 3.7%, 1.3 percentage points above Wisconsin’s rate.
Making it even harder for potential employers, the city suffers from an acute shortage of affordable housing and apartment stock to give those transplants to Monroe a decent place to live.
In Green County, monthly unemployment ticked up to 2.1% from 1.7% in April — both extraordinarily low numbers. A year ago, the jobless rate for Green County was 1.7%. In nearby Lafayette County, unemployment also rose slightly from 1.5% to 2% from April, and stayed at an even 2% year-over-year.
Over the course of a year, 27 Wisconsin cities had unemployment rates decrease or stay the same, state officials said.
Those numbers are reflected locally as a basic shortage of workers who can afford to live here on what they are being paid. It’s likely worse, experts say, because the same thing is happening to farm payrolls in heavy agricultural states like Wisconsin.
Buholzer is finding some new employees out of the county and in the Freeport and Illinois areas, but the commute costs add up quickly for employees who do not eventually relocate their families.
“Even before the pandemic, we struggled with it,” said Buholzer, adding that he has increased the number of his HR staff to three full time to handle the intense recruiting and employee care. “We have a wonderful work environment here. We could use more people but I just don’t see it happening for a while, anyway.”