Ask Not What Your City Can Do for New Jobs

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BRANSON MO NEWS: There has been a great deal of focus in economic development circles recently on the highly public effort to attract Amazon’s second headquarters. As the New York Times noted, “The process has garnered the kind of enthusiasm normally reserved for bids to host the Olympics.”And why not? Here’s a market-leading company pledging to bring 50,000 payroll jobs to an area in one fell swoop. Who wouldn’t jump at that opportunity? Many communities put together impressive packages offering incentives, public investments in transit, and other efforts that they regarded as worthwhile enticements to attract 50,000 new positions. Amazon has narrowed the list down to 20 finalists.

Of course, only one will win. But the process raises a larger question. Aren’t we ignoring a massive source of new jobs that is hiding in plain sight? That source: unfilled positions. The question cities and states should ask themselves is not how to attract entirely new companies to the area that will bring jobs, but rather how to help or convince companies that are already here to fill open positions.

The U.S. labor market is as tight as it has been in recent years. The unemployment rate is 4.1 percent. The economy has added payroll jobs for a record 89 straight months. Which means that recruiters, human resources managers, headhunters, talent scouts — you name it — are having difficulty filling spots. The upshot is that, according to the Labor Department, there were a record 6.3 million jobs open in the U.S. at the end of January. That’s a large number. It’s equal to the entire population of Missouri, or the number of employees in the finance and insurance industry, and a sum equal to 126 Amazon HQ2s.