At their meeting Tuesday night, the Joplin City Council was presented with the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce’s first-quarter report for 2022. The economic picture for the Four State region is optimistic. One highlight is full employment, with an unemployment rate of only 2.3.%.

At the same time, that is also a challenge for employers, according to the Executive Director of the MOKAN Partnership, Tony Robyn. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t result in an increased labor force participation rate; in fact it’s gone down a little bit, since my last report out. Largely to what we’ve heard over and over is retiring baby boomers and the COVID-19 impacts on the workforce. But also this new notion of lack of reentry, it’s people that, that aren’t even entering, aren’t even looking, they’re just not doing anything.”

According to the report, the Joplin Area is number one in trucking in the US due to high manufacturing, production, and centralized I-49, I-44, US, and highway 69 corridors. There are an estimated 30,000 trucks within 60 miles of the city.