City committee grants funding to help recruit workers

Seeking to address perpetual workforce shortages, Grand Forks business and civic leaders want to create a website to distribute information about the community to people looking to move here.

To that end, they went before the Grand Forks Growth Fund Committee Monday seeking $10,000 for the effort. The committee approved the funding, following the example of the Chamber of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, the Greater Grand Forks Convention and Visitors Bureau, UND and the Grand Forks Region Economic Development Corp.

Keith Lund, EDC vice president, said there seemed to be a lack of a centralized source of information for people to find out what Grand Forks has to offer.

"Altru tells you all the reasons why you want to work for Altru," Lund said. "But where is that centralized piece of information ... about why you should move to Grand Forks?"

Lund said human resources officials from firms such as Altru Health System and Minnkota Power Cooperative were brought in on the discussions to help advise the project's steering committee, which includes officials from entities such as the city, chamber and UND.

Ultimately, stakeholders chose a website and social media campaign as tools to help attract workers.

Julie Rygg, the visitors bureau executive director, said the $60,000 being sought sounds like a lot of money, but "it's needed."

"We're talking about a lot of data," she added. "To build that website will be quite costly."

There were 1,792 job openings in the Grand Forks region in October, according to Job Service North Dakota. That's down by 25 percent from a year prior.

City Administrator Todd Feland said Grand Forks' biggest workforce problem involves housing availability "and getting people connected to the right kind of housing."

Lund pointed to the Grand Sky drone park and Northrop Grumman's efforts to recruit workers to town.

"They need to be successful in phase one," he said. "There has been discussion about what phase two and three could be, but if you're not successful recruiting folks for phase one, phase two and three don't happen."

A funding proposal will go before the Grand Forks County Commission later this month.