We offer cheers from “greater Nebraska” to two noted but not naturally allied metro groups for joining to rally Nebraskans to solve a mutual challenge.

It’s the imperative need to bolster Nebraska’s workforce, which The Telegraph and our longtime sister paper, the Scottsbluff Star-Herald, explored at length last Sunday.

The Nebraska Chamber of Commerce and Industry (led by Gering native Bryan Slone) and the faith-based advocacy group known as Omaha Together One Community are inviting disparate interest groups to join them in looking abroad to help fill nearly 50,000 jobs open as of January.

They’re not talking about illegal immigration. It’s America’s legal immigration system they have in mind.

That system, with its work visas and green cards, per-nation quotas and bountiful harvests of red tape, has yielded some talented, well-motivated new Nebraskans despite its flaws.

They include the multinational array of medical professionals Great Plains Health has recruited for some years.

They also include South African workers on Scotts Bluff County farms and ranches and people like 21st Century Equipment export manager Alex Tkachenko, who has shuttled between Scottsbluff-Gering and his native Ukraine for more than a decade.

It can take years to get such people here for a time. It takes more should they want to come back for good.

But once they’ve tasted Nebraska, they’re more likely to return. Thus the state chamber’s and OTOC’s conviction that we need to invite more and lobby Congress to make doing so easier.

With Sustainable Beef taking shape and related businesses expected, Lincoln County’s impending need for more workers is obvious.

But nearly 800 jobs already were going begging here in January, when the unemployment rate was 2%. Scotts Bluff County had almost 1,150 open jobs and a 2.6% jobless rate.

It’s a similar story across the state. We’ve got the jobs if we can find the people to fill them (and, by the way, build the housing they’ll need).

Generations of immigrants built this nation and state. We could do far worse than to again invite eager world citizens to try out “The Good Life.”

This editorial first appeared in the North Platte Telegraph on March 26, 2023. It was distributed by The Associated Press.