MARION, Ill. (HEARTLAND NEWS) – A new report shows Southern Illinois is tied for first in Illinois for percentage job growth in information technology.
Local IT companies say the growth reflects increasing demand for their services across the region.
Mayer Networks has grown from several employees to nearly a dozen in recent years.
Nathan Colombo, Director of Client Strategy and Growth at Mayer Networks, says the expansion makes sense given the region’s needs.
“Specifically managed services like ours has grown significantly over the past decade as everybody in our region realizes that maintaining their critical network infrastructure is core to their business operations,” Colombo said.
The company started over 20 years ago with one employee and now has more than two dozen.
Colombo says Mayer Networks plans to expand into government services.
“Expect to see Mayer Networks more greatly engage in the government sector to ensure that networks are secure across municipalities, counties, police departments and all sorts of other critical infrastructure that keep Southern Illinois running,” Colombo said.
NorthBridge IT Services, based in Marion, reports growing demand from churches and rural communities.
Chris Ahart with NorthBridge says residents gaining access to services like Starlink need help connecting their systems.
“They need somebody who knows how to connect them to the internet so that way they can get their security cameras to connect and give them notifications if somebody’s on the property when they shouldn’t be,” Ahart said.
NorthBridge has seen particular growth with its in-house cabling team.
The company added the structured cabling division within the past three years.
“We have a structured cabling team. Those are gentlemen that are in-house employed by NorthBridge that run Cat 6 cabling all across and install security cameras, door access control,” Ahart said. “When you have large facilities, manufacturing facilities across Southern Illinois that need new equipment to be connected to the internet, we’re a company that does that.”
Nick Holdinghausen with Southern Illinois Now, which helps expand and attract business to the region, says the digital growth comes partly from local businesses.
Many IT positions are remote or work-from-home jobs.
“Those are a lot of times remote or work-from-home jobs and you don’t even know that those companies have people here,” Holdinghausen said.
Economic leaders say Southern Illinois is becoming more attractive for businesses because of transportation access and continued investment.
The region’s central location provides multiple shipping options.
“We are very centrally located. We’ve got the three interstates, the I-57, I-64 and I-24, but we’ve also got five of the six class one rails,” Holdinghausen said. “We’ve got a direct flight to Chicago O’Hare. And then of course we’ve also got the Missouri, Mississippi and Ohio Rivers and all of that comes together. It’s great for manufacturing, it’s great for distribution because people can reach their customers very quickly.”
The report by the Illinois Economic Development Corporation also highlighted strong growth in manufacturing, finance and agriculture-related industries. Leaders say they want to create opportunities that keep young people in the region.
“We want to bring high-wage, high-growth jobs right here to Southern Illinois. We want to bring opportunities for our young people to continue to grow and stay here in the region,” Holdinghausen said.
Colombo says regional education programs are helping companies like Mayer Networks build their workforce locally. He said many of their employees are graduates of John A. Logan Community College’s program.
“Regional education is a huge influence on training the workforce that we’re able to bring on board here at Mayer Networks,” Colombo said.
Leaders say the report’s biggest takeaway is the continued job growth happening across southern Illinois.
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