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Building You: Wichita employment expected to grow in 2021

Author: Lily Wu, KWCH Anchor/Reporter

 

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) - If you are looking for a job, there are thousands of job openings in the state right now.

 

The Workforce Centers of South Central Kansas ended 2020 with 589 job postings. As of today, the KansasWorks.com website showed 50,061 job openings.

 

“I think there’ll be a lot of job opportunities. I do think that our economy will struggle in some of our jobs around manufacturing; recovery there will take a little bit longer,” said Keith Lawing, president of the Workforce Alliance of South Central Kansas.

 

In this week’s newly released forecast by Wichita State University’s Center for Economic Development and Business Research, the average employment growth is forecast to be 0.7 percent in 2021, which would add more than 2,000 jobs back to the Wichita economy.

 

“We are expecting some more employment growth as we enter into the first part of the year. Most of that growth is going to be in this first quarter,” said Jeremy Hill, director of the WSU CEDBR.

 

He added, “A lot of the jobs we’re going to see created, over in the next quarter, are jobs that are coming back onto the market. We still see some other issues within the Wichita economy, particularly, the manufacturing side and aerospace.”

 

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