Governor Mike Parson told business leaders of Southwest Missouri that Branson’s economy is trending in the right direction following the pandemic.

To keep up the trend, Governor Parson told business leaders at the Branson Chamber of Commerce’s State of the State Luncheon that the time to advertise themselves is now in order to attract more business.

“Be down here in Branson in this area,” said Gov. Parson. “It’s always good and things are looking better every day. Had a big crowd here today.”

Missouri is also recovering well now that the pandemic is coming to an end.

“First in the nation right now in small business wage growth, second in apprenticeships and fourth in manufacturing,” said Gov. Parson. “Just a lot of positive things happening right now. Economy looks good.”

Jason Outman, the CEO of the Branson Lakes Area Chamber of Commerce and CVB, said there are key topics he wanted to discuss at the State of the State Luncheon along with Branson’s success.

“Whether it’s workforce housing, workforce development or just becoming a development friendly area,” said Outman.

Gov. Parson believes his announcement on eliminating the extra federal benefits for unemployment is helping with workforce issues across the state.

“What we do know is when we done that, people started really going back looking for jobs again and we know that’s helping and if you can just see the businesses everywhere across the State of Missouri, they’re looking to hire people right now,” said Gov. Parson. “And they’re paying decent money right now to get people back to work, but it was important to cut those benefits off. They were only made for a short period of time, not something to just linger on and again, it’s important we realize this crisis is over. People’s got to get back to work and we have to start filling some of these jobs.”

Missouri will be one of the first states to stop federal aid to unemployment, which will take place on Saturday, June 12.

(by: Jacob Blount and Ivie Macy, Ozarks First)