Dubois Strong is ramping up its job recruitment efforts to fill openings in the county.
Ed Cole, president of Dubois Strong, the county’s economic development group, said that in June brochures and employment information on Dubois County were given to Keller Crescent workers after the Evansville-based plant announced it was closing and eliminating 150 jobs. Cole said the county information packets were given to WorkOne, an office of Indiana’s workforce development system, who then passed the packets onto Keller Crescent workers that visited the agency.
“We’re trying to get this in the hands of these folks to say, ‘come to Dubois County if you’re not able to find anything locally’ because we got jobs,” Cole said.
At 3 percent, Dubois County currently has Indiana’s lowest unemployment rate. Still, the county is home to a number of local companies that have promised jobs as a requirement of accepting tax abatements. In April 2014, MasterBrand Cabinets announced plans to add up to 260 jobs by the end of 2016 as a part of its abatement package. As of July, MasterBrand had added 70. Jasper Engines & Transmissions has added more than 175 jobs in that same time period.
Cole said the employment information and brochures, which outline county amenities and facts such as the population and median family income, were given by WorkOne to about 40 laid-off Keller Crescent workers. Cole said WorkOne told him feedback on the county was positive from workers, but that there’s no great way to track if any of those employees ended up moving to the county. The next venture for Cole is to get that same information into the hands of workers in Randolph County, where Indiana Marujun announced that it will be closing its Winchester plant, which employed more than 750 people.
“We don’t want to give the wrong impression that we’re trying to take (other county’s) people,” Cole said. “It’s just, ‘here’s an alternative.’”
Eventually, Cole would like to extend the county’s job recruitment efforts into other states such as Illinois and Kentucky. Doing that might be more difficult, as Cole noted that other state’s employment offices might not be as helpful as Indiana’s WorkOne, which operates regional posts throughout the state. So instead of handing out a thin brochure and a list of websites, Cole said that Dubois County might have to look into advertising in out-of-state areas. Cole considers the approach necessary to creating a strong and successful county.
“The areas that do it well and promote themselves well are going to grow and the areas that don’t are going to have a world of problems,” Cole said.
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