A brand new report released by Forward Analytics finds that Wisconsin’s workforce has reached a tipping point: for the first time, healthcare and social assistance professions have surpassed manufacturing as the state’s largest employment sector.
From 2001 to 2025, manufacturing employment fell from 560,000 jobs to fewer than 460,000 today, while healthcare and social assistance employment grew from 321,000 to more than 463,000 over the same time period. Wisconsin joins the 46 other states that have made this transition, following national trends.
Manufacturing in Wisconsin is still a vital sector, employing nearly 460,000 workers at an average annual wage of $75,117 and contributing an estimated $74 billion to state GDP. The transition follows shifting demographics and economic patterns, driven by the needs of an aging population.
What the transition means for living standards, however, depends heavily on where growth within the healthcare sector occurs. Annual pay ranges from around $30,000 in social assistance to more than $92,000 in ambulatory care. The report finds that the lowest-paying sector — social assistance — has grown at the fastest rate, while higher-wage clinical roles lag behind. More concerningly, while the demand for nursing and residential care services has increased, the subsector most tied to Wisconsin’s aging population has seen a decrease of 5,000 jobs since 2019.