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Chamber: new prospect may bring 50 jobs; city starts using Placer AI to map labor shed
Summary
The Joplin Area Chamber told the council it has an unofficial win for a project creating about 50 jobs near Joplin and is using Placer AI cell-phone data to analyze labor sheds and visits to industrial parks; staff said the tool is "pretty invasive" but anonymized and useful for recruitment.
Travis Stevens of the Joplin Area Chamber briefed the council on economic-development work, saying an attraction project likely to bring about 50 well-paid jobs is unofficially secured and will be located just outside Joplin city limits. Stevens said the chamber is working on remediation plans for the new 330-acre industrial expansion site and is coordinating with EPA on capping contaminated soil so the park can be developed.
Stevens also described a new analytical tool the chamber is piloting: "Placer AI," which uses aggregated cell-phone location data to estimate visits and origin ZIP codes for employment centers. "It is pretty invasive," Stevens said, but he emphasized anonymization and the value of mapping a larger labor shed than traditional MSA data indicates. He showed examples for Crossroads Business Park and the Joplin Airport, and said the chamber will share the findings with the airport commission and prospective employers.
Councilmembers asked about labor and wage data requests; Stevens said the chamber will provide deeper analysis but staff resources are limited. He also reported ongoing work with Liberty (electric provider) to assess and plan for capacity upgrades to make Joplin more competitive for industrial prospects.
