Keeping millennials in eastern Idaho

Keeping millennials in eastern Idaho is a big focus for businesses and communities. Regional Economic Development for Eastern Idaho (REDI) is conducting a study on this and presented its second-phase findings Wednesday morning.

“The results were really interesting, and we found kind of a disconnect between way that these workers look for jobs and the ways that they’re actually finding jobs and how they’re using social media,” said Research and Business Development Center’s business research director, Will Jenson.

“What we identified in our research is that there’s a disconnect between millennial and the businesses in the area. The way that most millennial are finding jobs is by networking through friends or family or from university job ports,” said Research and Business Development Center’s project manager, Hailey Cox.

This was found in REDI’s second phase of its Eastern Idaho’s Millennial Research Study. This phase was to verify and follow up on the first phase in which nearly 1,000 survey responses from people ages 18 to 35 were shared.

“It’s a different group of workers. They are attracted and retained for different reasons than workers that are currently in the workforce,” Jenson said.

Through this study, the presenters hope to make it easier for businesses to attract and hire the millennial age group.

“We also found that millennials have a perception that there are no job opportunities here in eastern Idaho and that is their biggest reason for leaving the region. So the businesses in the area need to change the way they are communicating available jobs to these millennials to help retain them in the region,” Cox said.

The final information from this eastern Idaho-specific study on millennials., will help the region understand why millennials live here, what makes them stay and what could make them leave.