Chamber Updates

Missouri March 2021 Employment Numbers The Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC) released the Missouri monthly jobs report for March and it contains a lot of interesting information. According to the report, Missouri’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for March decreased to 4.2 percent from 4.3 percent in February. This rate has declined or remained…

The Lack of Available Workers a Rising Concern Just when the pandemic led us to believe we’ve seen it all, many businesses are now facing an issue completely novel in anyone’s memory. Lack of available workers is a rising concern across the country. And let’s be clear, I’m not talking about the issue of a…

Upcoming Tourism Events in Cape Girardeau Area Let’s not forget this important part of our local economic development efforts. The tourism industry which includes meetings and conventions, visitors tied to events, and tourists or travelers, is really gaining additional steam in our area. As you may recall, we have talked about the importance of the…

Professional Development and Business Success According to Zig Ziglar, “The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is not training them and keeping them.” Professional development is an important ongoing part of business success. It should permeate all levels of organizations large and small. And while most employers would agree with the importance,…

8 Workforce Development Initiatives at the Cape Chamber Pre-pandemic, we experienced near historic lows in unemployment. Post-pandemic, we see the nature of work shifting.  One thing we know for sure at the Cape Chamber is how challenging it has been and continues to be for our local employers to find quality candidates to fill open…

Evaluating Workforce Needs for Southeast Missouri Questions about a quality labor force in our area are about to get a deeper dive. Certainly workforce needs are an ever evolving situation. And emerging from this pandemic, it will continue to be an important focus of any economy. Several months ago, a group of business people began…

SEMO’s Harrison College of Business Reaccredited An important recent announcement affecting the local business community may have flown under the radar but that certainly doesn’t make it any less important. The Donald L. Harrison College of Business and Computing at Southeast Missouri State University was reaccredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.…

Business Safety Panel Recap First Friday Coffee goers were joined in March by representatives from the Cape Girardeau police and fire departments for a conversation regarding business safety. In case you missed it, here’s a brief recap of what Corporal Richard Couch and Fire Marshall Battalion Chief Greg Hecht shared!   For the full conversation,…

New Job Creation There are several measurements of a strong economy and job creation is the one I get asked about most frequently. Measuring the results of economic development efforts is multi-faceted. We define economic development simply as the increase in capital flow to an area. So, higher wages, capital investment, tourism dollars and new…