What are the keys to attracting young workers to join the Evansville labor market?

Is it the miles of beautiful Ohio River shoreline? The cost of living? The sports scene? Nightlife?

The Courier & Press spoke with multiple recent University of Evansville graduates now working in the city along with two experts in the local labor market The short answer: It's about in-career job opportunities just as much as looks.

A city's image matters

Tara Barney, CEO of Evansville Regional Economic Partnership, an economic-development organization and local-business advocate that serves Vanderburgh, Gibson, Warrick and Posey counties, said a key to growing the Tri-State region economically is attracting young talent to local industries. The pivotal factor in making that happen? Painting Evansville in a positive light.

"As I jokingly say, it's about dog parks, live music, cool food and vibe, which is the hard part," Barney said. "A huge part of young people choosing to come here is image."

Barney noted it's important for the health of the city to attract young talent, specifically in the 20-35 age bracket, for two reasons: A lot of what they want in a city — cool restaurants and places to go for a hike or walk the dog — is what a majority of those people ultimately want. Additionally, members of that age range have longer careers in front of them and are more likely to start a family in town, which helps grow the local population.

"Take a look at who lives Downtown," Barney said. "(It's) young people, and people who've gotten their kids out of the house."

Barney questions the old adage that "kids will move for the job." She believes today, when young job seekers have a choice of places to start their career — and they have plenty of choices in the current job market — that they'll pick the location with the highest "quality of place." 

That means the area that marries lower living costs with plenty of things to do will often win out. But circumstance and familiarity play a role, too.

Take Izzy Dawson, 22, a 2021 UE graduate with degrees in marketing and supply-chain management. Dawson, who works at Berry Global, said she didn't like living in Evansville during her time in college and did not plan to stay long after graduating.

She interned with Berry Global during her sophomore year at UE and liked the company. When they offered her a job during her final semester in college, she took it.

Dawson said labor-market uncertainties stemming from the pandemic influenced her decision to join Berry. Though being in Evansville wasn't her first choice, Dawson, a native of Trafalgar, Indiana, said she's grown to like the city.

"I didn't really like the area (around campus)," Dawson said. "But since moving Downtown, I love it. I'm on the river and there's lots to do."

Trafalgar is a two-hour drive north from Evansville. Dawson, like most of the other UE grads interviewed for this story, is an Indiana native.

And that tracks with the data UE keeps on where its students end up after graduating. In the college's annual report, UE said 61% of its 2020-2021 graduates remained in Indiana. 

Gene Wells, the senior director of UE's Center for Career Development, ballparked that around 70% of graduates stay within a 150-mile radius of campus. He didn't have specific data on how many grads stay in Evansville or Henderson for work, but did believe that those numbers have remained "stable" and "pretty strong" throughout the years.

Attracting 'local' talent

When a graduate has ties with a region that makes it easier to retain them, Barney said. She calls those people E-REP's "favorite customers" because they're far more likely to stay in the area. 

"We gain nothing if we don't focus on the people who grow up in our region or on the folks (living) within 100 miles who come here to shop or go to the hospital," Barney said. "There's an (exodus) of people (going) from rural America to urban America, and we want them to choose this urban area."

Dalton Selvidge, 23, a 2021 UE graduate who majored in civil engineering and now works at Commonwealth Engineers in Evansville, already had quite a bit of familiarity with the city; he's from nearby Santa Claus, Indiana.

"For us, Evansville was the big city," Selvidge said.

He had planned to pursue his master's degree at a school in Colorado, but instead accepted an offer with Commonwealth after interning with the firm for two years as an undergrad. Selvidge said he isn't planning on moving anytime soon because, in his view, Evansville "has anything anyone could ever want."

If he ever gets a hankering for the beach or the mountains, Selvidge said he can always go on vacation.

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Of course, not every UE grad hails from Indiana. Credence Pattinson, who now works at Old National Bank in Evansville, came to UE on a swimming scholarship from Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Pattinson said he knew nothing about the school or the region before arriving in the fall of 2017, but has since had "a lot of fun" in the area and doesn't see how other recent college grads wouldn't enjoy themselves here, too. He sees himself staying for at least the next three to five years.

One thing that surprised Pattinson? How many companies were based here. He cited Old National and Berry Global as examples.

"I was blown away by how many opportunities there are in the city," Pattinson said.

Looking for multiple options

If one job doesn't work out, Barney said it's important that a city or region is able to provide other options for prospective workers. She believes the Tri-State region offers that redundancy.

"This is why it's so important that we think of ourselves as a region, because it gives our constituencies a lot of choices," Barney said. "When you're too small of a market and you don't think broadly, you don't naturally offer your target audience those choices that may seem intangible, (but are in fact) very real."

Both Barney and Wells highlighted two industries — manufacturing and healthcare — as strengths in the region's labor market. Wells noted that UE graduates a "significant number" of health care professionals each year and that many of them stay to work in the area.

Andrew Patton, 25, is one recent UE grad who joined the ranks of the area's health care labor force. He works for the Rehabilitation & Performance Institute in Owensboro, Kentucky, as part of its orthopedic residency program. 

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Patton said he's spent a lot of time preparing for this specific residency program, but that from what he's seen the area is "pretty saturated" with physical therapy clinics. 

Originally from Springfield, Illinois, Patton and his wife will eventually want to move to Michigan to be closer to family, but he said they plan to stay in this area for a few years after his residency finishes because of the area's low living costs. 

And who knows? Maybe they'll stay longer. Plans change.

Izzy Dawson's did. Though she didn't initially like the Evansville area and had planned to move post-college somewhere closer to her hometown of Trafalgar, she now thinks she'll stay in the Tri-State for much longer.

"(Right now), I'm really enjoying my job at Berry and where I live," Dawson said. "I don't see myself leaving anytime soon."