Beth Townsend, director of Iowa Workforce Improvement (left), and Debi Durham, director of the Iowa Financial Improvement Authority (proper), talk about workforce options Thursday throughout The Gazette’s digital Iowa Concepts convention. (Display screen seize)

Beth Townsend, director of Iowa Workforce Improvement (middle), and Debi Durham, director of the Iowa Financial Improvement Authority (proper), converse with Zack Kucharski (left), government editor of The Gazette, about potential workforce options throughout The Gazette’s digital Iowa Concepts convention. (Display screen seize)

CEDAR RAPIDS — From launching a brand new enterprise engagement division, to utilizing federal pandemic aid cash on a brand new advertising and marketing and recruitment marketing campaign, to serving to employers present dual-language instruction, Iowa’s prime financial and workforce improvement officers shared their concepts for fixing the state’s workforce challenges throughout Thursday’s Iowa Concepts convention.

“We’ve got a inhabitants drawback in Iowa, proper? We’ve got extra jobs than there are folks to fill them,” state Financial Improvement Director Debi Durham mentioned throughout The Gazette’s digital convention, which continues Friday.

A listing of Friday’s Iowa Concepts periods, that are free with registration, might be discovered at iowaideas.com.

Iowa has about 84,400 open jobs and about 44,700 folks unemployed, in line with Iowa Workforce Improvement.

U.S. and Iowa inhabitants tendencies level to a shrinking workforce. Child boomers are retiring, and birthrates are declining beneath alternative numbers. Immigrants and refugees have been the largest drivers of Iowa’s inhabitants beneficial properties

Immigrants made up 44 % of Iowa’s inhabitants development from 2010 to 2019, and Iowa’s non-white inhabitants elevated by 60 % over the past decade.

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Iowa Workforce Improvement just lately launched a brand new Enterprise Engagement Division, which Director Beth Townsend mentioned is designed to be “a one-stop store” to assist employers discover options and can create a extra environment friendly state construction for assessing workforce challenges of Iowa companies.

The brand new division was created on the route of Gov. Kim Reynolds. Coinciding with the launch, members and state company leaders are touring throughout the state to talk to employers, the company mentioned.

In January, Iowa Workforce Improvement launched a program that Townsend mentioned seeks to get unemployed Iowans again to work as rapidly as doable, by offering enhanced providers to these submitting for jobless advantages originally of the claims course of — throughout the first week. The company offers profession teaching and assists folks find jobs extra rapidly, together with by serving to match their expertise with the talents want by native firms with vacant jobs, and connecting them to courses centered on resume writing and techniques for profitable job interviews. For these receiving unemployment advantages, their work-search necessities are audited weekly.

“What I actually love about this applications is we’ve actually been capable of assist folks attain greater than they in any other case would have reached, as a result of we inspired them” to go after their dream job, Townsend mentioned. “We’re actually attempting to advertise hope, attempting to encourage them to do extra and be greater than they ever felt doable.”

Up to now, she mentioned Iowa Workforce Improvement has helped greater than 20,000 unemployed Iowans via this system.

“It’s not nearly getting staff for employers. It truly is discovering significant work for these which are within the job search,” Durham added.

Townsend additionally highlighted state officers efforts to recruit and assist veterans and veteran spouses discover careers in Iowa after they’ve left the navy, via Dwelling Base Iowa.

She mentioned the company has employed 5 profession navigators to assist veterans discover a job in Iowa and make connections with employers searching for people with related, fascinating talent units, and has helped greater than 220 veterans discover work within the state.

The pair mentioned state officers are also centered on growing the state’s expertise pipeline and offering accessible, reasonably priced pathways for Iowa highschool college students to obtain an training and begin a well-paying profession within the state via apprenticeships.

“We’ve seen a big improve within the variety of excessive colleges collaborating“ in registered apprenticeships, Townsend mentioned.

She famous highschool college students in 140 Iowa college districts will begin coaching as paraeducators as a part of a brand new grant program designed to deliver extra academics into the workforce.

The roughly $46 million Instructor and Paraeducator Registered Apprenticeship Pilot Grant Program permits highschool college students and adults to coach as classroom aides, in the end incomes a paraeducator certificates and dealing towards an affiliate diploma, and permits present paraeducators to earn a bachelor’s diploma and a full educating license.

Townsend mentioned this system might result in the certification of 1,100 new academics and paraeducators.

Regardless of setbacks and workforce challenges posed by COVID-19, Durham mentioned the pandemic has offered some silver linings.

She mentioned market analysis reveals that with the rise of firms adjusting to distant work alternatives, 7 in 10 People are more likely to think about transferring for the correct alternative. State officers have used federal pandemic aid funds to grab on that opening via a $10 million advertising and marketing marketing campaign touting Iowa as a vacation spot.

The marketing campaign is constructed on analysis across the perceptions of Iowa, displaying that almost all People merely don’t know sufficient in regards to the state to kind an correct opinion.

“We’re not countering a adverse model,” Durham mentioned. “For us, it’s actually about an introduction. It begins with, ‘We haven’t been correctly launched.’”

She mentioned market analysis reveals People keen to relocate are searching for affordability, financial vitality, a various and wholesome job market and outside recreation.

“We imagine Iowa checks all of these containers,” she mentioned.

Durham mentioned the state additionally continues to recruit new employers to the state, even with the tight labor market. These recruitment efforts have been centered on manufacturing and bio-based chemical substances, utilizing biomass to create bio-based merchandise which are more healthy, sustainable and options to petrochemical merchandise.

“For the very first time, that worth proposition is making financial sense,” Durham mentioned of latest and rising applied sciences. “There’s a ton of cash chasing it.”

Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com