Assessing the workforce development needs of healthcare employers in Southeastern Wisconsin
April 2010Despite the region's high unemployment rates, a recent survey of health care employers in Southeast Wisconsin indicates that a limited supply of qualified healthcare workers is harming efforts to fill current job openings. Respondents say applicant quality (60.7%) and retaining qualified workers (30.2%) are the biggest challenges they face in meeting their organizations' workforce needs. Gaps in applicants' basic skills, especially soft skills such as professionalism, team skills and verbal communication, also make it harder for healthcare employers to recruit and hire competent job candidates.
The recent survey of 28 healthcare facilities included the four largest hospital systems in southeast Wisconsin, as well as nursing and residential care facilities such as doctors' offices and diagnostics labs.
Pursuing Innovation
Benchmarking Milwaukee's Transition to a
Knowledge-based EconomyMarch 2010While the Milwaukee region's economic base is rooted in its manufacturing history, many believe that the region's future prosperity will be tied to its ability to successfully transition its economy into one that is based on knowledge and innovation. The Innovation Index presents baseline data for measures that have been closely linked to the 21st century economy: idea development and commercialization; entrepreneurship; and the availability of knowledgeable and skilled workers.
The Milwaukee region's transition to the knowledge-based economy may best be described as a work in progress. With regard to innovation inputs, many regional trends are positive, including growing university research and development spending, higher educational attainment levels, more jobs created by small firms, and more Small Business Innovation Research-Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR-STTR) awards. Far less promising, however, are the region's negative or flat trends in patent activity, number of scientists and engineers, and knowledge workers per capita.
Related materials:A snapshot of the Metro Milwaukee Innovation Index
The People Speak Poll:
Region's residents favor subsidies for water industryMarch 2010Greater Milwaukee residents show solid support for efforts to use the region's abundance of fresh water as an economic development tool, even if it means paying slightly more for their own water or using public subsidies to do so. That's according to the latest People Speak Poll of 429 residents in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee counties conducted in mid-February.
Nearly 70% of municipal water users participating in the poll would be willing to pay a small surcharge on their water bill "to fund economic development activities promoting southeast Wisconsin as a place for water-related research and economic growth." In addition, 65% of all respondents agree that government subsidies are "desirable to attract new or expanded water industries to southeast Wisconsin." More than 80% of respondents agree the region has the potential to become a global leader in the water technology industry.
New regulations impacting school choice program: School closures up, number of new schools down
February 2010Between the 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years, fewer new schools joined the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) than ever before. In addition, 14 MPCP schools closed and another three schools merged - the most year-over-year closures the program has seen. In this 12th edition of the Public Policy Forum's annual census of MPCP schools, we find 112 schools are participating in the choice program, enrolling 21,062 students using taxpayer-funded tuition vouchers. The number of full-time equivalent students using vouchers is greater than in any other year of the program's 19-year history; however, there are fewer schools participating today than earlier this decade.
Related materials:Milwaukee Voucher School Directory
Assessing the workforce development needs of healthcare employers in Southeastern Wisconsin 
