Milwaukee County continually has one of the highest unemployment rates in Wisconsin.

But Donald Sykes is here to change that. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett hired Sykes Sept. 30 as a consultant on job creation in the city.

"I don't see myself as creating jobs," Sykes said. "I'm here to figure out how to create a workforce that meets the needs of existing companies in Milwaukee."

The $75,000 grant that allowed Barrett to hire Sykes is part of the federal funding Wisconsin receives to connect citizens with job opportunities. The money is supposed to spur on economic and workforce development, according to Rose Lynch, director of communications at the Department of Workforce Development.

"Milwaukee has a unique set of needs," Lynch said. "It tends to have higher unemployment, and it is our largest metropolitan area. It tends to need more attention than other metro areas."

Barrett received the grant to develop the whole Milwaukee area's workforce.

"Because Milwaukee is the largest metro area in the southeast corner of the state, Mayor Barrett is in a position to lead the way in workforce development," Lynch said.

DWD statistics show that Milwaukee County's unemployment rate has remained steady, while state rates have dropped.

Wisconsin's unemployment rates dropped from 5.5 percent to just over 4.5 percent between 2003 and 2005.

During that same period of time, Milwaukee County's unemployment rates fluctuated around 6 percent. As of July, the county was ranked fifth in the list of the state's most unemployed counties, according to the DWD Web site.

Sykes said he hopes he can help the city eventually reverse this trend, but for the time being, he is on a fact-finding mission.

"I'm taking the temperature in Milwaukee," Sykes said. "I'm finding what has worked before and what hasn't, as well as what people in Milwaukee need."

Sykes said he is looking at cities such as Baltimore, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Chicago and Cleveland for models of successful workforce development.

"I'm getting ideas, but there is no cookie-cutter," Sykes said. "Each community is different."

Sykes's main focus for workforce development will be on education. He said that University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has been very involved with developing job opportunities.

"I'd like to see the whole education system from the public school system up through UWM and Marquette be a part of this," said Sykes. "We want to build a stepladder from A to Z, from entry-level jobs for the working class up to technological jobs for college graduates."

According to Laura Kestner, the director of Marquette's Career Services Center, 11 percent of undergraduate and 11 percent of graduate alumni from out of state work in Wisconsin. However, 88 percent of undergraduate and 86 percent of graduate alumni from Wisconsin remain in the state to work. These figures apply for those students who have jobs one to five years after graduation.

"We assist students with career goals. If that takes them out of the state, then we'll support them in that," Kestner said. "My obligation is to the students, and I would never tell them to take a job in Milwaukee over another place just because that's what the governor wants."