GREEN BAY, Wis.— Wisconsin’s largest business trade association says the state’s manufacturing sector is recovering from the pandemic.

Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce held a call Wednesday to update its members on the health and economic impacts of the pandemic.

“We’re not just business leaders, we’re community leaders, and we need to use the influence we have over our employees to emphasize and reinforce that your employees take the same precautions at home and at play to protect themselves, their family, their friends, their co-workers and of course their community,” says Kurt Bauer, president and CEO of WMC.

Bauer says he’s been encouraged by how business owners and workers have responded to the pandemic implementing and sticking to safety measures to combat the spread of COVID-19.

Brian Andrew, chief investment officer of Johnson Financial Group, said during the call nationally the manufacturing sector is down about 720,000 jobs since February. He says Wisconsin manufacturers employ nearly half-a-million workers. He says the pandemic has brought that number down to under 450,000.

Andrew says some of those lost Wisconsin manufacturing jobs have come back.

“The manufacturing sector of the economy has really recovered at a much better rate than any other parts of the economy,” he says.

Neel Kashkari joined Wednesday’s call. He’s president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. He says he believes it’ll take several years for the U.S. economy to recover from the impacts of the pandemic. He says confidence is the key to recovery.

“When are going to go back to normal? When are we going to get back to the robust economy that we had? When we get the virus under control,” Kashkari says. “This is not about politics. It’s about confidence. It’s about when am I going to go back out to restaurants.”​