A Seattle business journal reports on a $1 million campaign by companies based in Northwest Arkansas to lure workers from Seattle, home to Microsoft.

Example of the outreach:

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Right on Northeast 45th Street in Seattle’s University District, next to The Donut Factory and The Joint, stands a billboard about the Northwest.

The billboard doesn’t tout the Cascades, Mount Rainier or Puget Sound, but rather Northwest Arkansas. It shows a handful of young adults sitting in a courtyard, some playing cornhole while others eat lunch. A tagline reads “Where work/life balance is real.”

The article quotes Nelson Peacock of the Northwest Arkansas Council about big-city amenities, shorter commutes, lower cost of living (average home prices, though rising sharply in NWA remain about a third of the cost in Seattle) and “quality of life.” He talks of Walmart, Tyson and J.B. Hunt and their suppliers as among those needing workers. And he mentions the $10,000 bounty (payable in Bitcoin if desired) and bicycle offered to transplants.

So far, 63,000 people have applied, of which about 75 have been awarded the prize, Peacock said. He added that almost 1,000 applied from the state of Washington, and two former Seattleites have won and moved here.

One is Nate Nead, an investment banker who now owns businesses providing online marketing, software development, web design and media management services. Nead grew up in Maple Valley and spent roughly 30 years in Western Washington. Nead and his wife had family in Northwest Arkansas, however, and were already considering the move before discovering the incentive.

Nead goes on to extol the good things he’s found in Arkansas.

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It works both ways, though. The article notes Walmart is successfully recruiting people to work in its Seattle offices. It is also hiring thousands of workers for tech hubs in Atlanta and Toronto.

 

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