There's a mismatch between Missouri firms wanting to hire highly skilled employees in tech and medical fields and workers looking for jobs in those fields, according to a new study from the Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC).
The study found that 52.3 percent of job ads on the job board provided by the state's Department of Workforce Development (DWD) - jobs.mo.gov - in 2016 were for jobs in health care, business and sales, and science and technology fields, but only 23 percent of job seekers were looking for jobs in those fields.
Representatives from local hospitals said it's sometimes hard to recruit employees to Jefferson City. Local business leaders said the gap is a problem for communities nationwide.
The gap between health care jobs available and workers seeking them is 6.1 percent higher in 10 Central Missouri counties than in the rest of the state, according to the MERIC study.
Gaps between jobs offered in business and sales jobs and science and technology jobs are still pronounced in Central Missouri, although slightly smaller than the state average.
Last year there were 8,817 health care jobs posted to the website, but just 1,221 job seekers in that field. Statewide there were 78,436 health care jobs posted, but just 10,586 job seekers.
Jefferson City Medical Group (JCMG) Physician Manager Corinna Mejia-Ridenhour said the physicians' group recruits from all over the world. Russia, India, Pakistan and Jordan are a handful of countries JCMG physicians come from. JCMG does not try specifically to recruit local physicians or physicians from outside the area; it simply tries to recruit the best doctors it can find, she said.
"Usually we want physicians that have an interest not only in building a practice here at JCMG, but who also want to build the community," Mejia-Ridenhour said.
Given Jefferson City's smaller population and lack of some amenities found in larger cities, Mejia-Ridenhour said, it can sometimes be tough to recruit physicians to work at the hospital. She said there are many things to do here, but not necessarily the things Millennials are looking for.
"Jefferson City has a tendency to feel like a small town filled with senior citizens," Mejia-Ridenhour said. "There's things to do here, but it's not a very obvious destination at the top of everyone's list."
Dawn Sweazea, talent acquisition leader for St. Mary's Hospital in Jefferson City, said Mid-Missouri in general is a hard place to recruit workers because of its low unemployment rate.
"It is a very tight labor market in Mid-Missouri," Sweazea said. "People that want to be in the workforce are in the workforce. So for nurses it is a challenge to hire nurses and it it a challenge to find registered nurses."
In March Jefferson City had an unemployment rate of 3.4 percent, below the U.S. unemployment rate of 4.5 percent.
Statewide 386,578 jobs were posted on DWD's job board, but just 107,840 job seekers actively used the website. Jobs posted on other job boards, newspapers or through word-of-mouth were not factored into the study. The authors acknowledged the study's data set was limited, but noted it still highlights problematic gaps in certain job markets.
Central Missouri's gap between workers in business and sales jobs was about 1.6 percent less than the state average. The gap in the science and technology sector was about 4.4 percent less than the state average.
A 2016 study commissioned by the Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce showed just 3.2 percent of the workforce in 11 counties make up the Jefferson City Labor Basin work in technology jobs and just 7.4 percent of people work in health care fields - the majority of jobs being in fields like office management and government services, followed by manual labor jobs like construction, farming or maintenance.
Randy Allen, president of the local Chamber of Commerce, said health care and tech firms nationwide are having trouble recruiting employees.
"This is not unique to Jefferson City," he said.
Still, Allen said there are probably more tech programmers and IT specialists in Jefferson City than there normally would be for a city of its size because of computer programmers employed by the state of Missouri.
There are plenty of programs available through state and local governments to train workers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, Allen said. Colleges nationwide have also begun creating incentive programs for students to enter jobs in STEM fields.
"There's already all kinds of programs to encourage kids in middle school and kids in college to get into STEM programs," Allen said. "I don't think there's a lack of programs, just a lack of students going into those programs."
With I-70 running through Central Missouri, the region is a small trucking and transportation hub. The study noted a 2.7 percent gap between jobs offered and job seekers looking. Again, Allen pointed out this is a nationwide problem.
"Fewer people are wanting to drive 200,000 miles per year, and we get almost everything by truck," Allen said.
Still, the study also noted Central Missouri's large surplus of people seeking management jobs. Allen thinks this is because of people employed by the state of Missouri in the Capital City.