(WSIL) -- Missouri is ending it's covid related unemployment benefits in an attempt to get people back to work. Leaders in Mt. Vernon tell News 3, they're trying to fix a similar problem in southern Illinois.
Tony Iriti the Executive director for the Jefferson County Development Corportation says right now businesses in southern Illinois are struggling to find employees.
"We have restaurants that are only open part time because they can't find enough employees to serve the demand."
Executive Director of the Greater Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce, Mike Beard, says the county is largely an industrial economy, supported by companies like Continental Tire.
"There's other ancillary factories that are working that feed Continental Tire that pay 20-30 dollars an hour with some skills. A welder could write their own check as to how much they want to make per hour and go to work tomorrow at numerous places in Mt. Vernon."
They say there are several issues contributing to this, and the blame can't really be pinned on any specific cause.
"The stipend on the unemployment is one of those issues, but the second part of that issue, if you think about it, with schools not being open and kids with the cost of daycare, and somebody has to stay home with the kids," says Iriti.
"So now why people aren't applying for those jobs, you'd have to go ask them individually, but all the speculation is is the extra 300 dollars a week, and by the time you put in whatever they may have been making per hour, they can make more money by staying home, so," says Beard.
Regardless of what's driving the lack of bodies in the workforce, Iriti says Jefferson County is working to fix it.
"We're going to try and attack it from a different area, through our development corp, and that is to try to and see if we can't get those folks trained into areas that need to be filled."
