jan 1, 1979 - One quarter of Milwaukee's industrial jobs lost 1979-1983

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The recession of the early 1980s was a product of a chain reaction: Interest rates rose to record highs, which encouraged foreign investment in the United States, which created an unusually strong dollar. That combination of events acted like a highly selective virus, one that devastated American's manufacturing sector but left other areas of the economy largely intact. High-interest rates made it more expensive to produce goods, while the strong dollar crippled export sales and opened the door to a flood of relatively inexpensive foreign products. American manufacturers had to charge more, in other words, while their global competitors were charging less. The inevitable result was a steep decline in the market for American capital goods.

Allis-Chalmers was hit particularly hard but was not alone. Falk, Ladish, Harnishchfeger also suffered. Manufacturing employment in the four-county area sank from ww0,w00 in 1979 (its all-time high) to 164,200 in 1983 - a drop of 56,000 workers. That was more jobs, in absolute numbers, than Milwaukee lost during the Depression. As the unemployment rate reached 13.3. percent in the autumn of 1982, thousands of local families felt the crisis personally.

The economic dislocations of the 1980s created a mood of general uncertainty, to say the least. Industry had been Milwaukee's bedrock for more than a century, and now local residents could feel the earth shifting beneth their feet.

Generations of Milwakeeans had grown up with the expect5ation that they could finsih high school, enter an apprenticeship program, and work for one employer until retirement. That expecation vanished utterly. As the number of metro-area workers engaged in manufacturing shrank from 40.5 percent of the total in 1960 to 24.1 percent in 1990, there were fewer jobs available, and none held the promise of lifetime tenure.

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