OEA - Southwest Workforce Development Area (WDA)

Grant, Green, Iowa, Lafayette, Richland, and Rock Counties

Contact the regional analyst: Dan Barroilhet

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Data Dashboard contains statewide and regional analyses on current issues coupled with easy to use data tools, all at your fingertips.

Regional profile (PDF, 240KB) contains detailed labor market information for the entire region. Revised July 2005.

County Profiles contains detailed labor market information for individual counties within the entire state.

Regional Projections

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About the Southwest WDA

The Southwest region is composed of 6 counties; Grant, Green, Iowa, Lafayette, Richland, and Rock. Rock County is the dominant county in the region accounting for 52 percent of the region's population, 52 percent of the region's labor force, and 56 percent of the nonfarm jobs. Rock County has a strong employment base in durable goods manufacturing. It is estimated that close to one in every ten employees working in Rock County is involved in the production of automobiles, either in assembly or in the production of raw materials for assembly. All over the Southwest region, manufacturing is the dominant industry. Five of the ten largest private employers in the region are in the manufacturing industry, and four of the ten largest industries are in manufacturing. More than one in four jobs in the Southwest Wisconsin are in manufacturing.

Lafayette County is one of only four Wisconsin Counties where 40 percent or more of total county employment is directly related to farming or farm related products. Richland County fell a bit short of being included with Lafayette, 38 percent of all employment in Richland County is directly related to farming or farm related products.

According to Census 2000, the population of the region was 292,392 an increase of 7.2 percent since the 1990 Census. The size of the region's labor force was 150,500 with almost 144,000 of those persons employed. The region's annual average unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in 2000. Also as of 2000, there were 125,574 nonfarm jobs in the region, an increase of 15.5 percent since 1992. The average annual pay in the six county region was $27,637, which was 90.1 percent of the state average. The more metropolitan Rock County had average wages of $31,137 in 2000, higher than the state average.

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The linked PDF files require the Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have the most current version, you can download Acrobat Reader from the Adobe website at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html

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Updated: September 05, 2008
Office of Economic Advisors