Greater Burlington Partnership Launches Laborshed Study

The Greater Burlington Partnership will be working with Iowa Workforce Development’s Regional Research Bureau to complete a Laborshed employment study for the Des Moines County area.

This study will examine the labor force from which Des Moines County area employers draw their employees, and is based upon commuting patterns into the area.

David Toyer, Director of Economic Development at Greater Burlington Partnership says that the goal is to gather information both for use and attracting new employers to the Area as well as providing advice and resources to our existing business community.

“Those labor shed reports study things like commuting patterns, how many workers we have in any given industry, what kind of transferable skills and experience those workers have, information on wages and benefits and a variety of other important data points.”

These bi-yearly labor shed reports are used by the Economic Development members in every new business and industry attraction project. Toyer says that most recently it was used to attract the Silgan plant, to show them that by making an investment in Burlington, they would have a skilled and available workforce to fit their needs.

Silgan will soon be coming to the Burlington area, creating 100 new jobs.