Warren County’s Labor Pool to Reach 300,000?

On this final day of 2013, I focus on people and the recent relationships that people have had with their work.

Warren County has a competitive advantage in terms of the size of its laborforce pool and the skills of the people who comprise it.  While some companies might desire to locate in less densely populated, rural areas due to lower real estate and labor costs, the fact remains that the size of the workforce pools in these areas continues to shrink.  As the ‘Southern Gateway’ into the Des Moines Metropolitan region, and with a natural gravitational pull of people from southern Iowa, Warren County has the ability to attract workers from a large circumference around Warren County.

As a way to measure and assess the size and makeup of the area’s labor pool, the Warren County Economic Development Corporation has commissioned Iowa Workforce Development (IWD) to complete the annual 'Laborshed' survey for Warren County.  As reported in yesterday's Des Moines Business Record, IWD will first survey employers to find out the workforce concentration in various zip codes from where their workers reside.  Next, IWD will perform a random sample of people based on these concentrations utilizing a phone survey.

When the survey was completed in 2012, the following communities had these laborshed sizes:

·         Carlisle – 224,267 (58 times the community's population)

·         Indianola – 290,332 (20 times the community's population)

·         Norwalk – 277,333 (31 times the community's population)

Of these cities, Norwalk’s laborshed base consisted of 32 percent of individuals who were "very likely or somewhat likely to change or accept employment".  Neither Carlisle nor Indianola’s respective laborshed bases faced as much potential shift.  Carlisle’s laborshed base, however, experienced the highest level of "underemployed" individuals with 5.4 percent of those surveyed.  People within Carlisle’s laborshed base were also willing to travel 24 miles one way for the right employment opportunity.

Indianola had the highest average age of those surveyed (47 years of age) and also the highest level of education with 56 percent of those surveyed having some education beyond high school. 

The construction industry generally had the highest unemployment.  The manufacturing industry generally had the highest percentage of people willing to change employment.  ‘Professional services’ was the highest paying industry.

The potential workforce base for Warren County communities extends as far north as Ames, as far south as Missouri, as far east as Pella, and as far west as Adel/Winterset.  Of course, this is all based on the 2012 report, and it will be interesting to compare the changes in trends when the 2014 report is completed next spring.