Wisconsin Gov. Evers, workforce sec. talk jobs and child care in Onalaska

The OmniCenter in Onalaska hosted a job fair Tuesday, which attracted Wisconsin’s governor and other state leaders.

Gov. Tony Evers identified child care as a needed service to help parents remain in the workforce, to keep millions of jobs filled statewide.

“It’s estimated that without the necessary investments to stave off a looming fiscal cliff facing our state’s child care industry, more than 2000 child care programs will be projected to close,” Evers said. “And I’m sure some of them are in this area.”

The governor added that employer productivity would go down if many parents had to stay home to watch their kids instead of working.

Evers spoke to the job fair audience, along with his Workforce Development secretary, Amy Pechacek, who said Wisconsin is “crushing it” when it comes to finding work for state residents.

“We broke the lowest unemployment rate in the history of the state, like ever. EVER,” Pechacek said. “We broke it, not once, not twice, but three times this past year.”

The state’s unemployment rate is 2.4 percent.

Pechacek said Wisconsin also has more people working than ever before, with more than 3 million jobs filled but, she added, there are still two jobs out there for every person in the state who’s looking for work.