The city of Bowling Green is applying for a grant to fund a study to help determine the best ways the area’s foreign-born population can help fill the thousands of job openings in the region.

The Bowling Green City Commission on Tuesday approved applying for a $12,500 matching grant called Gateways for Growth offered through organizations called New American Economy and Welcoming America.

The grant would be used to “develop a strategic plan to connect New Americans to available employment and career service opportunities,” according to the municipal order approved by commissioners.

The city would fund the 50 percent required match – $12,500 – for the $25,000 study.

Bowling Green Area Chamber of Commerce President/CEO Ron Bunch and South Central Workforce Development Board Chairman Ron Sowell both wrote letters in support of the grant application and would be partners in the study.

Chamber data from July show that there were 5,992 open positions in the 10-county region surrounding Warren County.

The effort to use the area’s foreign-born population is “an important strategy to fill these 6,000 jobs,” City Manager Kevin DeFebbo said.

“It helps solve the crises of not having enough workers,” DeFebbo said, noting that while many areas struggle with job creation, this region has the opposite problem – finding enough workers to fill the vacancies.

The city has used tax incentives to create 3,300 jobs since 2006, DeFebbo said, while the chamber and others have also recruited businesses and the resulting thousands of jobs.

Bowling Green’s foreign-born population makes up about 13.5 percent of those in the local workforce, according to Census Bureau data.

A significant portion of the city’s foreign-born residents go to outlying areas to work, however – many for agricultural work, DeFebbo said.

The city’s international communities liaison Leyda Becker said the Gateways for Growth study would be “designed to us help us narrow down strategies, … look at where the barriers are” to the foreign-born population filling more of the local job openings.

Bowling Green International Center of Kentucky Chief Operating Officer Chris Kantosky previously told the Daily News that businesses often seek out the refugees his agency resettles in Bowling Green for reliable workers.

Kantosky said a mayor from a neighboring city recently called the center looking for 70 workers. The mayor said a local industry had to move a production line outside the state because of a shortage of workers.

A study by the National Academy of Sciences, released in 2016, found that “Immigration is integral to the nation’s economic growth. The inflow of labor supply has helped the United States avoid the problems facing other economies that have stagnated as a result of unfavorable demographics, particularly the effects of an aging workforce and reduced consumption by older residents.”

The local chamber sees the Gateways for Growth grant as “an opportunity to draw on best practices from around the country to maximize the opportunities available to our New Americans and to continue to build upon a rich foundation of diversity and inclusion,” Bunch wrote.

City Grants Coordinator Nick Cook said that if funded, the study would start this fall.