The City of Sioux Falls is unveiling a new campaign to attract workers to job openings. It’s complete with a website to collect all local career opportunities – from business to non-profits to city government. The website is the center of a workforce recruitment effort.
"Our economy in Sioux Falls and in this region is about as red hot as it gets," Smith says.
Leaders in Sioux Falls says the city has more than 2-thousand job openings and new projects are set to add even more positions. Darrin Smith is the Director of Community Development in Sioux Falls. He says workforce recruitment is the city’s number one need and a website that works on both computers and mobile devices is an essential resource. Smith says the city’s new job site directs users to listings already posted online.
"The message for businesses is this: keep doing what you’re doing as far as advertising your job openings, whether it’s on your own corporate website, paid advertising, or a combination of both," Smith says. "Keep doing that, and we will find your available job and pull it into this single site that people will get accustomed to visiting."
Smith says more than $35,500 are invested in the workforce recruitment campaign. $24,000 went into the website. Two kiosks cost about $8,000, and interstate billboards and signs at the airport run about $3,500. Website maintenance and ads come with additional ongoing expenses.
Sioux Falls Mayor Mike Huether says the city has an interest both in networking job-seekers with companies and for recruiting its own employees.
"If you want to be truly effective in terms of economic development, workforce recruitment, workforce development, generating sales tax dollars, making your community a great place to live, work, and play, that government definitely has a role – as long as it is one that complements the efforts of those partners that you’re doing it with," Huether says.
Huether says the issue came up again just a few days ago.
"Guess what the number one topic of discussion was amongst our city team: finding workers. Isn’t that crazy? I mean, when I was a kid, everyone wanted to work for the city – especially the Parks department. Well, guess what. We are struggling to find workers who will fill Parks jobs in our city. Talk to Mark Cotter. He’s trying to find people who will work to fill potholes in our city," Huether says.
Huether says he wants the city to expand its workforce recruitment campaign to more locations in Sioux Falls, and to reach people in nearby cities including Minneapolis and Omaha.
Visit SiouxFallsHasJobs.com.