Webster Groves BDC votes to archive city job board after low usage; members discuss BlueDot and referral alternatives

The Webster Groves Business Development Commission voted to archive the Working Webster job board after commissioners found little usage and limited value compared with larger job platforms.

Commission members reported the site had few recent postings and low public traffic. One member said the page currently shows only a single nanny posting and noted that, historically, municipal and local business hires were more visible on the site immediately after COVID‑era rollouts but have declined since. Several commissioners argued job hunters favor established platforms such as Indeed and LinkedIn and recommended driving traffic to existing channels or connecting the city page into BlueDot if technical integration is possible.

Renee Tyler, city staff, said the job board requires manual review of submissions before posting and that the city team needed to decide whether it merited continued maintenance resources. Commissioners discussed options including a limited promotional push, a targeted outreach campaign to ask businesses to post openings, or an integration with BlueDot to surface openings where local residents already look for community information.

After discussion the commission elected to archive (take down) the job board and pursue alternatives to help businesses recruit, with a follow‑up to determine whether BlueDot can host or mirror job postings. The vote to archive was recorded by consensus; no roll‑call tally was given in the meeting transcript.

Members asked staff to report back on maintenance costs, whether BlueDot can be configured for public job searching, and whether the job board can be repurposed or relinked to larger job platforms in a way that does not duplicate staff effort.