Illinois Partners for Human Service released a report Tuesday on the economic impact of the industry in parts of southern Illinois.
The study evaluates the impact of 30 human service organizations in Senate Districts 58 and 59.
Rollie Hawk is the IT and communications director for Family Counseling Center. He says the report is designed to help human service agencies to think more about the business side of their industry.
"Maybe they're thinking very solidly in a clinical sense, but then how do we keep our doors open? How do we act in a fiscally responsible way? How do we implement new technology? Things like that, when that's not the core competency of the people we're working with."
Community organizer Kate Sakhoury helped put the report together. She says human services makes a huge impact, especially in rural Illinois.
"In some cases the human service workforce is greater than 10% of the workforce in a given county. So, while the numbers aren't as tremendous as some for-profit businesses, we definitely are very heavily involved in this region."
The report indicates human service agencies employ over 24-hundred people
n the two Senate districts, generating nearly 136-million dollars in economic output.
Overall, it supports over 31-hundred jobs and generates almost 174-million dollars in economic output.