Laborshed employment study set

The Fairfield Economic Development Association has been working with the Iowa Workforce Development?s Regional Research Bureau to complete a Laborshed employment study for the Jefferson County area.

The study will develop the potential labor force from which Jefferson County area employers draw their employees based upon commuting patterns into the region. The study will assist existing and potential new businesses in better understanding the areas labor force and characteristics regardless of political boundaries.

The Laborshed boundary is based on the place of residence of individuals working in the Jefferson County area. For the success of the study, employers in the Laborshed area were asked to provide aggregate counts of their employees by ZIP code by place of residence. This reporting will give researchers a good understanding of where each community?s worker force resides.

Once that Laborshed area is determined, a confidential household telephone survey will be conducted in those areas. The questions will cover topics like: employment status, wages, benefits, education and occupation. Survey results will then be applied to demographic data to develop a total potential labor force of the laborshed as well as estimates for various labor force characteristics.

The results for each county and regional analysis can be found at www.iowaworkforce.org/lmi/labsur/index.html.

For informationn about the Laborshed employment study project, call Iowa Workforce Development project manager Ryan Murphy at 515-281-7505 or FEDA executive director Tracy Vance at 472-3436.