St. Charles County Unemployment Down, Industries Optimistic

St. Charles County resident Tewanna Verner has been looking for jobs at the Missouri Career Center Office on Second Street in St. Charles for six months. 

Verner said the job hunt has been very frustrating for her.

“You put in so much effort and work trying to go to the interviews and they never call you back. Or you just keep calling every now and then and bothering them, but they still won’t call you for the interview. But they say they’re hiring. I don’t know why they put it on there that they’re hiring if they aren’t going to hire.”

According to theMissouri Department of Economic Development, about 7.6 percent of St. Charles County residents claimed to be unemployed last May. 

Although that might seem high, Director of Missouri Department of Workforce Development Don Holt said it is the lowest unemployment rate St. Charles County has had in three years. Moreover, Holt said St. Charles County has the lowest unemployment rate in the region.    

On the Missouri county unemployment map, St. Charles County looks like a safety bubble in a sea of high unemployment rates. St. Louis, Warren, Lincoln and Franklin counties all have more than 8.5 percent unemployment.

Holt said some industries in St. Charles County are reemerging. Niche jobs in construction and IT services are becoming available as well as seasonal jobs in hospitality. 

More summer jobs for high school and college students are also opening up. Holt said the production and manufacturing industries are showing a lot of potential.

“We are seeing some real positive indicators with some of our manufacturers,” Holt said. “We don’t have anybody hiring 30, 50 people, but we do have people that are starting to hire a half dozen or whatever. And they’re starting to talk positively about [how] they think they’re going to be hiring more in the next 6 to 8 months. So we are seeing those jobs come back.”

Holt said the IT service companies have also talked about hiring and more companies are looking for people with skills in information technology. 

He said though very few major layoffs are expected to happen in St. Charles County in the near future, American TV is closing three stores in the region.

“Out of their four locations in the metropolitan area, three of them are right here close by,” Holt said. “So, we have a lot of residents that work in those locations. So, that one’s going to be a fairly big one. I don’t know of the numbers for sure, but between the three locations we’re probably talking hundreds of people, easily.”

Holt said the unemployment rate is down to where it was in 2008, but the county is still far away from the low unemployment rates we had before the recession.

“It’s been a tough couple of years. We are seeing things start to turn around here,” Holt said. “We’re making some positive progress. We feel good about that. We’re kind of leading in a lot of ways for the metropolitan area, but I don’t think any of us are satisfied with where we are. Both from the business perspective and the employee perspective.”

This means, though St. Charles County’s economic situation is improving, residents like Tewanna Verner are still going to have to find new ways to market themselves to employers.

Verner said she is going back to school to put a college degree on her resume.

“I think the hardest thing is that I don’t have a college degree cause a lot of jobs require some kind of college. We jumpstarted school in the fall for EMT, so I am going back to school cause I’m tired of this trying to find a low budget job, or ‘you can’t get the job because you don’t have some kind of college degree behind you.’”

Jobs Available in St. Charles County:

• Representative/Retail Sales for Verizon Wireless (Wentzville or O’Fallon)
• Part-Time Teller for UMB Bank in St. Peters
• Desktop/ Applications Administrator for St. Charles Community College in Cottleville
• Preowned Sales Professional for Jim Trenary Inc. in St. Charles
• RN or Circulating Nurse for Surgery Partners in St. Peters