Fairfield area businesses invited to participate in laborshed study

FAIRFIELD — Businesses in the Fairfield area are invited to participate in a survey being conducted by economic development groups.

The survey will focus on the area’s laborshed, and will ask employers about what town their employees live in. Joshua Laraby, Fairfield Economic Development Association Executive Director, said the main benefit of this study will be looking into the commuting patterns of the area’s workforce, which is useful for all sorts of organizations.

Laraby said letters will be going out to employers in the next few weeks, and he wants business owners to know this is not a scam but a legitimate survey being conducted by Iowa Workforce Development and Iowa Economic Development Authority. Those two organizations have taken on the responsibility of producing laborshed studies once every two years, and this is their second, with the first coming in 2020. Before that, FEDA was in charge of conducting and paying for the study.

“With this laborshed study, we can say, ‘Here’s information on why you should work here,’” Laraby said. “We use this as an informational tool when talking to outside prospects and also to our existing businesses considering expanding.”

Laraby said this survey is for Fairfield, and Fairfield is part of a regional laborshed study done on Region 9.

“We’ll be able to see workforce data from nine counties in our area,” he said.

The purpose of this Laborshed study is to measure the availability and characteristics of Fairfield area workers. Laraby said laborshed studies are useful tools for economic development teams and existing or prospective employers to understand the local labor market, make informed expansion and site selection decisions, and maintain/recruit a high-quality workforce.

“Employers will be contacted in the next few weeks and we encourage all employers to participate in the laborshed study,” Laraby said. “The study helps provide the collective information for workforce and economic development initiatives.”

At a later date, the two state agencies will conduct a second part of the survey, which will involve surveying the workforce directly. This will involve asking them if they are employed, a homemaker, or retired, and how likely they are to accept employment in the future.

From the information derived from these laborhsed studies, employers can gain a sense of prevailing wages in their industry, so they know if their own wages are competitive.

Every year Iowa Workforce Development conducts Laborshed studies across the State. The results of each analysis are publicly available online at www.iowalmi.gov/laborshed. If you have any questions about the Laborshed project, contact Katie Lippold at 515-281-3035 or Joshua Laraby, Fairfield Economic Development Association at 641-472-3436.

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com