Management and professional positions in short supply

Management and professional positions are in short supply across the Ozarks, said Georgia Douglas, a counselor with Snelling Search in Springfield.

"There are so many unemployed out there in the upper level, mid-management and technical engineering-type positions that the market is just saturated with people out there searching for jobs," Douglas said.

Patti Penny, owner of Penmac Personnel Services, has seen a similar trend.

"We do have a number of people applying for (management positions) through our Web site, and we don't have a lot of (positions) available," Penny said.

Jeremy MacLaughlin, director of human resources at Citizens Memorial Hospital, is having the opposite problem of trying to attract nonmanagment-level workers to Bolivar.

"We can tend to pull professional people north, but with nonprofessional types of positions, we don't have as good luck recruiting them north," MacLaughlin said.