Wisconsin Manufacturers More Confident About the Economy

Thursday, October 2nd, 2025 -- 1:00 PM

(Joe Schulz, Wisconsin Public Radio) Wisconsin manufacturers are more confident about the economy than they’ve been since 2021, despite nearly three-quarters saying they’ve been affected by tariffs.

According to Joe Schulz with the Wisconsin Radio NEtwork, that’s according to a new report from the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity, a public-private partnership that provides resources to manufacturers.

The annual report includes the results of a survey of more than 400 manufacturers and a series of focus groups. The center presented the report’s findings to northeast Wisconsin companies on Tuesday at TitletownTech in Ashwaubenon.

In addition to measuring economic sentiment among manufacturers, the report provides insight into companies’ divided views on tariffs, how they’re responding to Wisconsin’s labor shortage and embracing artificial intelligence.

According to the survey, 65 percent of manufacturers say the business climate is headed in the right direction. That’s the highest since 2021, the first year of the survey, when 55 percent said the business climate was headed in the right direction.

Forty-six percent of manufacturers say the economy is mostly flat, while 32 percent say it’s growing and 20 percent say it’s either shrinking or already in a recession, the report said.

Additionally, 90 percent of manufacturers said they were confident in their own financial outlook, the report said. That’s up from 86 percent in 2021 and 2022, and 85 percent in 2023 and 2024.

“Confidence among manufacturers is clearly on the rise,” said Rob Autry, a pollster and consultant who worked on the report. “Confidence in the business climate, confidence in the economy, confidence in their own individual companies.”

But the cause for the economic optimism among manufacturers isn’t quite as clear. Autry noted economic sentiment was very low in the 2024 report, with nearly half saying the business climate was headed in the wrong direction.

“This might have been a little bit of an overcorrection this year,” he said. “I think that’s kind of reflecting the big change between 2024 and 2025.” With so many headlines around tariffs since the start of the year, Buckley Brinkman, executive director of the Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity, said he was surprised to see such bullish results in this year’s survey.

He said Wisconsin manufacturers are more confident about the economy and their operations than in previous surveys, but they’re still hesitant to make investments because of market uncertainty.

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