Video aims to attract millennials to state
Rural image hurts, survey finds
Hoping to attract more millennials and new companies to Wisconsin, a trade group and its partners have produced a video highlighting the benefits of living and working in the state.
Wisconsin is one of just a few states with more baby boomers than millennials — roughly defined as people born between the early 1980s and 2000 — and is headed for a labor shortage, according to Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce.
WMC cited a 2015 survey of more than 2,000 Americans that showed Wisconsin has an image problem that hurts the retention of its existing population, especially young people. That image — partly that most jobs here are farm-related — also deters young adults from considering moving to Wisconsin, WMC said.
The new video, titled “Wisconsin: A Great Place to Get Started,” paints a picture of Wisconsin as a splendid state for young people, offering start-up companies and millennials the same — if not better — experiences as Boston, Seattle and California’s Silicon Valley at more affordable prices.
“Wisconsin is a great place to live, work and play,” Kurt R. Bauer, WMC president and chief executive, said in a statement. “However, Wisconsin cannot grow and prosper the way we need to if the state continues to be the best kept secret in the Midwest. This video demonstrates that Wisconsin is a great place to get started — we just need people to know about it.”
The video features the Madisonand Milwaukee-based start-up accelerator gener8tor, which helps new companies as they grow.
One company highlighted in the video is Bright Cellars, a Milwaukee-based personalized monthly wine subscription service that matches its members with wine they would enjoy. Bright Cellars, which started in Boston and has worked with gener8tor, has grown from three to 25 employees. The video includes employees of Bright Cellars talking about its growth here and the benefits of calling Milwaukee home.
The video was produced as a part of the Future Wisconsin Project, which is a partnership of the WMC Foundation, the University of Wisconsin System, the Wisconsin Technical College System, Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the Department of Workforce Development, the Department of Public Instruction and Wisconsin Economic Develop Corp. The project is a 20-year economic planning initiative to ensure Wisconsin is ready to tackle the challenges it will face in the coming decades.