KC metro job numbers grow as Panasonic plant starts hiring

DE SOTO, Kan. — One of the region’s newest employers is just starting what will be a massive hiring campaign to eventually bring on roughly 4,000 people to work inside Panasonic’s EV Battery Plant.

Another 4,000 are expected to work for other companies that fill out the Astra Enterprise Park. Panasonic’s first few hundred workers could be hired by the end of the year and the impact is already rippling through Downtown De Soto.

“80 percent [of customers] are excited,” Bailey’s Buy, Sell & Trade Owner Wade Khatchadourian said. “This is the old part of De Soto. Go two and half blocks north, south, you can tell it’s booming. We’ve got a round about now, stoplights.”

Khatchadourian’s very informal poll is backed up by much more scientific data from the Mid-America Regional Council (MARC) report on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics looking at employment over the whole region.

“We’re looking at what are the structural changes in the economy that really set us up for a prosperous future and these are the kind of investments that really make a difference, “MARC Director of Research Services Frank Lenk said.

The outlook wasn’t nearly as good at the end of last year.

“At the end of 2023, we were seeing employment declines where as in most metros, they were seeing employment increases,” Lenk said. “It was very worrisome, but since the beginning of 2024, its rebounded tremendously. We’ve added about 20,000 jobs in six months which is more than we typically add in a year.”

Lenk says big projects like the Panasonic plant, likely stadium construction or even the 2026 World Cup preparations are the kind of projects that can have a drastic and lasting impact.

“That’s when you get an acceleration which puts us into a different growth strata than we’ve been in in the past,” Lenk said. “The question is: can we sustain it?”

You can find the Panasonic job listings here.

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