Time For The Homesick Option Again?

Back in 1995, I started and ran a website called HomesickOhio.com. It was a hobby, though I made a modest profit from it every year after the first couple until family and job changes caused me to want to mothball it.

It was conceived as a small part of a strategy to connect with displaced Ohioans from all over the US and the planet. It was hoped that that re-connection would inspire people to return to jobs in Ohio at a time, 1995-1999, that Ohio was facing a labor shortage. While we had their attention on reliving Ohio memories or seeking out high school football stories from their hometown, the concept was they would check out job postings.

The site got national recognition in 1998 when featured by the Toledo Blade in a feature article and not one, but two editorials.


Well, Ohio is there again. A Dayton Daily News story is the most recent in-depth piece looking at how the bad demographics of parts of Ohio are colliding with the growth Ohio's now experiencing. The labor shortage is becoming more and more profound every day.

Licking County's positive demographics and robust post high school education efforts have left us more immune to this issue than most, but we can't rest on our laurels.

As the article points out, there is no quick, easy fix. Something like HomesickOhio.com, though could be part of the solution. It's time, again.

Let me be clear.  I'm not reviving HomesickOhio.com, I'm advocating for the concept to be used as part of government and corporate efforts to more aggressively recruit to fill job openings.

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Take action:   Learn more about HomesickOhio.com. I resurrected a few posts from that website to run every day next week during Spring Break.