Huron County's Economic Development Department Hoping to Encourage County Residents to Work in Huron County

by Bob Montgomery

Huron's Economic Development Department is hoping to encourage county residents, who are currently travelling outside of the county to work, to return to Huron County.

Economic Development Workforce Coordinator Clara Leney says the biggest obstacles to attracting people from outside of the county are housing and transportation. But, she points out, the 28% of the Huron County workforce that currently travels out of the county to work obviously has transportation as well as housing in the county. Their short term goal is to try and convince some of the Huron County residents who are commuting to consider some of the jobs that exist in Huron County, where they already have a home, and save the time they're spending driving for something else. Leney also notes 36% of the workforce age population in Huron are currently not working. She says there could be a number of reasons for that, but they would like to encourage some of those people to re-join the workforce and fill some of the 23-hundred jobs that are currently available.

Leney says several people left the work force because of COVID and they're looking at things like what kind of training they could provide for those people to encourage them to return to work. She notes they have launched a communications campaign and they have several billboards urging people to Drive Less, Live More and Work Local, so they're trying very hard to make the point that there are opportunities in Huron County and there are benefits to working close to home.

Leney says they've established some short, medium and long term goals. She says the longer term goals have more to do with youth recruitment and retention, but for now they're focused on the short term objectives.