(Radio Iowa) – The Siouxland Chamber of Commerce is looking to help keep displaced Tyson foods employees in the Sioux City area workforce and in the community. Tyson announced plans last month to close down their corporate facility in neighboring Dakota Dunes, South Dakota to transfer those jobs to their main headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas. Chamber president Chris McGowan says he and other local leaders have reached out to Tyson about their decision to close the facility.

“It affects over 500 employees. They’re not just executives. It’s across the board. From administrative and clerical to very high ranking seasoned experienced executives,” he says. “We want to do everything we can to support our community in this process. From the very beginning, we have stated that we are respectfully requesting reconsideration of this decision.”

Tyson still operates a beef processing plant in Dakota City, Nebraska, another Tri-state border community to Sioux city. He’s hopeful Tyson will keep some of the Dunes workers here because of the 21 year relationship with the city, that includes their sponsorship of Sioux City’s Tyson events center arena: “They don’t have to listen to us they don’t have to communicate with us but we believe that our community for 21 years now since — Tyson acquired I-B-P — that this community has been a heck of a strong partner. In the meantime, the chamber is communicating with other companies in the Tri-state area who may have need of employees with the skill set from the Tyson corporate positions.

“You can go to the Suitland Chamber of Commerce website right now it has information about job postings for companies that are looking for people in this market right now. Additionally, you can scroll to the bottom of that page and you’re gonna see a list of companies who have created specific messages saying, we’re looking to hire people right now,” McGown says. “We want to retain as many people as possible. We want to make sure that those who wish to stay in our Siouxland Community, we’re doing everything in our power to make that possibility a reality.”

The website is Siouxland Chamber dot com.