WICHITA, Kansas – An article published in the Wall Street Journal says the Air Capital doesn’t have a good pool of potential hires, to relocate to other major aerospace hubs.

It’s an issue that has some in the industry concerned.

“I think people who say that Wichita is not a good place to look for talented aerospace workers, are short sighted,” stated Dave Franson, Wichita Aero Club President.

The Wednesday Wall Street Journal article titled ‘Firms Flock to Cities with Top Talent’, explains research was done this year, looking at cities with the best chance of finding workers willing to relocate. It found that “…traditional aerospace hubs like Wichita, Kansas and Huntsville, Alabama, didn’t look promising.”

“They are not taking into consideration that Wichita has been one of the five aerospace clusters in the world for an established period of time,” Franson explained.

Franson says since the recession hit in 2008, there’s been a shortfall in job opportunities in the Air Capital. He tells KSN’s Avery Anderson that the industry has changed its demands. However, he argues that there is not a lack of talent in Wichita.

“Does Wichita have a problem of attracting some people? Does it impact the long term viability for some of these aerospace companies? That’s true. And, that’s something that we’ve known for quite a while,” stated Jeremy Hill, Director of Economic Development at WSU.

A recent Wichita State study analyzed rankings of aerospace skills set in both engineering and production. Wichita has the highest ranking in production occupations in knowledge categories. It’s comparative to Seattle, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles and Phoenix.

And, when it comes to engineering skill sets compared to the others, Wichita is still the highest.

A negative stereotype of Kansas could be reducing aerospace opportunities.

“Their understanding of Kansas would be pretty simple. It’s flat, it has Dorothy and wheat maybe, you have cattle, is probably the limitations. They don’t understand or have full knowledge of the bigger cities. They don’t understand Topeka, they don’t understand Wichita,” Hill explained.

Officials like Hill and Franson say that with top notch aerospace research facilities and educational entities in Wichita, they’re hoping that it will continue to bring more jobs and more opportunities to the Air Capital.