employment

What do you want to be when you grow up? Gender might determine what images come to kids’ minds.

So many fields are dominated by one gender or another that Wisconsin has a name for this trend: “non-traditional occupations.” Those are fields that employ 25 percent or less of one gender. The state keeps track, and publishes a list every few years.

Leaders at schools like MATC say it’s their mission to shorten that list.

In Wisconsin, the gender wage gap is 22 cents per dollar, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families. This adds up. American women are losing up to $1.5 million over the course of their lifetimes. A program at UWM is hoping to make wages more equal by teaching future graduates how to negotiate with employers.

Update, Nov. 23: Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel is praising a federal court in Texas for issuing a nationwide preliminary injunction to halt the Dept. of Labor's Overtime Rule. Schimel, representing Wisconsin, had joined 20 other states in asking the court to put the rule on hold. "There’s no greater honor than representing millions of Wisconsinites in the continuous fight for the return of power to our citizens, away from an out-of-control federal bureaucracy in Washington D.C.

After unrest rocked Milwaukee in August - following the police killing of a black man, Gov. Walker promised to send mobile job banks to distressed city neighborhoods. Many are plagued by joblessness and crime.

On Tuesday, the first traveling unit arrived. It set up a bank of computers on 27th and North, inside the Dept. of Workforce Development. Several dozen people came in to take advantage of the services.

Jerry Grover sat in a corner of the Hire Center, searching for jobs on a laptop.

When Governor Walker last week announced the state would spend more than $4 million to spur workforce development on the north side, he said some of the money will pay for mobile response job centers to set up in zip codes where unemployment is high and access to resources is limited. 

Could jobs be headed to Milwaukee's north side? A local businessman is hopeful, and he’s talking with others.

Tim Sullivan used to lead South Milwaukee giant Bucyrus, a mining manufacturer. Now he's CEO of REV Group, a firm headquartered in Milwaukee, which makes ambulances, buses, street sweepers and a range of other vehicles.

REV Group has bid on a contract with the United States Postal Service to build vans.

Sullivan says the city's north side would be the perfect place to do the work because of the area's huge labor pool.

Elected officials and community activists gathered in Milwaukee on Tuesday to criticize Gov. Walker’s job creation agency. They insist it has not done enough to fuel economic development in the Sherman Park neighborhood. 

Violence broke out there this month, after an officer fatally shot a man who police say was armed and fleeing a traffic stop. But, activists did not limit their criticism to just the state.

Tens of thousands of graduates are either entering the workforce or searching for their place in it.

And if you're a new grad looking for a job, these may be some of the best words you'll hear this spring:

"There will be an increase that pretty much brings us back to the levels of employment for recent grads that occurred before the recession."

That's Jean Salzer, director of UWM's Career Planning & Resource Center. She’s talking about predictions from the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

The term millennial is thrown around so frequently that many may not know who is and isn't a millennial. It's used pretty generally to mean a young person, and it doesn't really have a strict definition, which has been confusing for some. 

Some cities around the country have found a way to connect unemployed and underemployed people with work by requiring a certain number of them be hired for public works projects and other developments made possible through public dollars.

Milwaukee has one of those programs, called the Residents Preference Program, or RPP.

Milwaukee's program has been around for more than two decades. But in recent years, criticism has been leveled that RPP has not had the level of success many had hoped for it.