Southeastern Iowa looks to avert damage of layoffs, downsizing

A fledgling state program aimed at reducing layoffs and unemployment is finding strong support in a corner of Iowa clobbered by manufacturing layoffs in the recession.

The emerging Layoff Aversion & Early Warning System project was explained Tuesday to southeastern Iowa economic development and business leaders at a meeting of the Lee County Industrial Council in Fort Madison.

The demonstration project will strive to develop an “early warning system” for tracking deteriorating business and industry conditions that could lead to layoffs, downsizings and business closings. With advance warning of a likely downturn, it will try to help businesses find solutions and help workers to upgrade their skills.

Iowa Workforce Development is developing the program in collaboration with the Association of Business and Industry and other groups. A key early element of the project involves mapping networks of communication and support among business leaders and service providers.

“We'll do a lot of detailed mapping to understand the relationships and interrelationships of people throughout the state,” said Phil Hecht, a retired Hearth & Home Technologies executive from Fort Madison and member of the Regional Workforce Investment Board for Region 16 in southeastern Iowa.

Hecht said one purpose of the mapping is to ensure businesses are connected to the network by more than one contact. If that contact retires or isn't accessible for a significant period, the service providers in the state might not learn about the distress signs until it's too late to make a difference.

Globalization and the recession have taken a heavy toll on the manufacturing employment base of southeastern Iowa.

Lee County, where Fort Madison and Keokuk are located, had one of the state's highest unemployment rates in February, at 11.7 percent. Des Moines County, where Burlington is located, had an employment rate that was also approaching double digits, at 9.2 percent.

“Anything we do is better than nothing,” said Janet Fife-LaFrenz, a Lee County supervisor who chairs the Region 16 Regional Workforce Investment Board.

Fife-LaFrenz said the current system of waiting until workers have been laid off before they receive training or advanced education leaves them “stuck in a kind of limbo, of having to go back to school for 18 to 24 months while their unemployment benefits are consumed.”

Getting ahead of the layoff curve also may have psychological benefits that can reduce social and family problems.

“We're also talking about their self-worth,” Fife-LaFrenz said. “When you're shopping elbow-to-elbow with these individuals in the stores in your community, you can see the tension in their situation.”

Iowa Workforce Development received a $1.99 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor in July 2008 to develop the program. The grant runs through June 30, 2011.