COLUMBIA — The Columbia Chamber of Commerce wants to bring people who have left Columbia back to the city to fill a local worker shortage.
The chamber calls the initiative the Boomerang program, and it is currently scheduled to roll out mid-November with a website.
On an average day in Boone County, there are about 6,000 jobs open but only 3,000 people looking for a job, said Lily Boyd, interim CEO of the chamber.
That means that if all 3,000 of those people got a job, they would only fill half the open positions in the city.
As a health care hub with both Boone Health and MU Health Care based in Columbia, Boone County's primary job needs are nurses or other health care providers that make hospitals run, Boyd said.
Part of the recruitment plan is to send out "sizzle boxes," which would be packages filled with iconic items from Columbia — like cups from Shakespeare's Pizza or University of Missouri merchandise.
"The people getting these packages will have been actively looking at our website or jobs in the area," Boyd said. "This will give them that taste of home."
