Moberly Career Center closing at the end of April
After several recent layoffs, Moberly is facing another economic hit. The city just learned it will lose its career center at the end of the month. But the community has already lost the Scholastic plant and its social security office, and in the past few two years, Wilson Trailer also announced layoffs and Mamtek never developed.
City leaders believe it’s going to have a huge impact on the area. And city leaders tell ABC 17 News they’re worried. That’s because with only limited jobs in the area, this will also affect how people look for work.
There will be a total of eight workers in the career center possibly without jobs come April 30th. That’s because the state is deciding to not lease the building anymore. Once they leave, all of the other programs that work out of the building will leave too. Employees say they’re worried. That’s because they know what the job market is like right now.
“Us being laid off, if there’s no jobs here, no services where we can do our 4 week. The likelihood of us moving to another area is pretty huge,” Moberly Career Center worker Cynthia Higgins says.
Higgins says she found out a couple of weeks ago she might be out of a job. She says there are about 2,000 other people trying to find work in this center.
Moberly leaders say this will also have long term impacts.
“All of these folks come to Moberly to shop for services for their livelihood, and so here we go again cutting services,” Executive Director of Moberly Chamber of Commerce Debbie Miller explains.
The ones getting unemployment benefits have to check in at least once every four weeks. Now they will have to go to the Kirksville, Hannibal, or Columbia offices to do that. But many unemployed don’t have enough gas money to drive long distances or don’t have access to the internet.
“We’ve been searching through the community to find office space, we would like to stay with some of the other partners,” Higgins says.
City leaders say there is hope on the horizon. They say there are some businesses and jobs that should be coming to Moberly soon. They would not tell us what types of jobs these might be or how many.
