Employment
Although most people associate Milwaukee with beer, the days of the big breweries are past as Pabst and Schlitz are no more. Only Miller remains of the big three, and it employs only about 1% of the city’s workers. But, the city is still a blue collar town in many ways with manufacturing, transport, import and export and food preparation employing more than 22% of the city’s workers. But, high-tech, service, healthcare and managerial positions are the fastest growing segments of the Milwaukee economy with more than 27% of jobs falling in these areas.
Milwaukee is home to six Fortune 1000 manufacturers and six Fortune 1000 service companies, including Briggs & Stratton, Johnson Controls, Manpower Inc., Marshall & Ilsley, Northwestern Mutual, Rockwell Automation, Roundy's and Wisconsin Energy.
The city’s most romantic and Americana-rich employer is Harley-Davidson. The motorcycle manufacturer has always called Milwaukee home and remains the U.S.’s only major manufac-turer of motorbikes. The company’s “hogs” are as identifiable with AMerica as hot dogs and apple pie.