Includes telephone survey of residents
Midwest Partnership EDC (MWP) will work with Iowa Workforce Development’s Regional Research Bureau to complete a laborshed employment study for the Western Iowa Advantage (WIAD) region of Greene, Adair, Audubon, Carroll, Crawford, Guthrie, Ida, and Sac Counties.
This study will examine the labor force from which WIAD area employers draw their employees and are based upon commuting patterns into the area. The study will assist existing and potential businesses to better understand the size and characteristics of the area’s labor force regardless of political boundaries.
The laborshed boundary is based on the place of residence of individuals commuting into the Western Iowa Advantage area for employment. For the success of this study, IWD will be sending letters to employers in the MWP region of Adair, Audubon, Greene, and Guthrie Counties, asking that they provide aggregate counts of employees’ residential ZIP codes. This reporting will give IWD an understanding of where each community’s workforce resides.
Once that laborshed area is determined, a confidential household telephone survey will be conducted in those identified areas. The questions will cover topics such as: employment status, current and desired wages, current and desired benefits, education level, and type of occupation. Survey results will be applied to demographic data to determine the size of the Western Iowa Advantage area labor force as well as various labor force characteristics. Iowa Workforce Development will not ask survey takers any identifiable information such as their name, social security number, or date of birth.
The results for each county and regional laborshed analysis can be found at https://www.iowaworkforcedevelopment.gov/laborshed-studies. Persons with question about the laborshed workforce project are asked to contact Katie Lippold at 515-281-3035 or Sarah at 515-523-1262.
