Yesterday, Visit Sarasota County and the Economic Development Corporation of Sarasota County (EDC) announced a collaboration to attract working-aged adults to Sarasota County and make it home. “Work Where You Want to Live” was created to lure new residents to the area to fill open positions with local employers. It will target key national markets that are known to feed visitors to the area. “At VSC and the EDC we are listening to our local businesses, and they are telling us that, like so many employers around the country, they need help building their workforces,” said Visit Sarasota County President Virginia Haley. “We know from years of analyzing our visitor and relocation data that people tend to visit here before deciding to move to Sarasota County. Thus, we’re targeting the markets that often send us visitors and providing all of the resources someone would need to find work and settle down.”

With creative and earned media assistance from two local companies, Miles Partnership and Knight Strategic Communications, markets targeted through a combination of media outreach, branded digital content, digital marketing, and paid social media include New York, Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and Atlanta. Audiences are directed to the Visit Sarasota website, which offers abundant relocation information, and the EDC website, which includes a job search tool that aggregates open positions with local employers. While the campaign is designed to attract workers, it may also serve to attract companies seeking to relocate to Sarasota County and people who want to start businesses.

“We’ve seen a record number of business relocations and expansions in Sarasota County this year,” says EDC President and CEO Lisa Krouse. “However, as these companies grow, they’re facing the same labor shortages as the rest of our country. Through our collaboration with VSC, we hope that our efforts to recruit new talent and expand the labor pool with enhance our local business climate and allow room for more business relocation and expansion.”

The campaign comes as Visit Sarasota County hit new summer tourism records, and the EDC reported a year of record results.

Information on Visit Sarasota County can be seen at visitsarasota.com. Information on the Economic Development Corporation can be viewed at edcsarasotacounty.com.