Could some of the nearly 13,000 Afghan refugees at Fort McCoy potentially fill or reduce the worker shortage problem in Manitowoc County?
While on WOMT’s “Be My Guest” program on Tuesday, Mayor Justin Nickels said that not only is the City considering it, he’s been contacted by Karen Nichols, the Executive Director of the Chamber of Manitowoc County to discuss the feasibility of the idea.
“I know she’s been with some other folks in the community including Jaime Zastrow of Progress Lakeshore plus looking into what other communities are doing,” Nickels explained. “The Appleton City Council recently passed a kind of feel-good resolution basically saying, ‘hey we need the workers. They’re here and let’s get them into our community.’ That’s on our mind and this is absolutely an idea because of the need for workers in our community.”
Fort McCoy is one of eight U.S. military installations housing Afghan refugees since the collapse August 31st of the U.S. backed government to the Taliban.
