Despite paying its employees no less than $15 an hour, Hope Haven Area Development Center is struggling to fill its job openings.
At full staffing, Hope Haven, which provides opportunities and services to people with disabilities in Des Moines, Henry, Lee and Louisa counties, employs about 300 people in the quad-county area.
According to its website, about 50 of those jobs, with starting pay ranging between $15 to $19 per hour, remain unfilled.
The requirements for the majority of its full- and part-time positions, which include direct support professional and job coach, Hope Haven Executive Director Bob Bartles said, are a high school diploma or equivalent, the ability to pass a drug test and background check, a valid driver’s license, and the ability to be kind and caring.
Not long after COVID-19 took hold in the U.S., Hope Haven, with grant funding, added a $3 differential to its employees’ pay, which, for most, was $12 per hour.
“When this pandemic hit, we did a differential because people were literally risking their lives to work for us,” Bartles said. “That really helped. Of course, there’s no funding for that, and no sustainable funding, but we really worked hard to find grants and so on, and we were successful, mostly.”
Still, some employees were forced to leave due to lack of childcare spurred by school closures, while others left out of fear of the virus, but Bartles believes staffing would have been hit harder had it not been for Hope Haven’s pay differential and extensive cleaning procedures and quarantine policies.
Now, with the pandemic ebbing, Hope Haven is working to keep that differential, keeping a watchful eye on available grants and other funding opportunities, such as increased Medicaid reimbursements.
“We kept it in place because we want to pay that kind of money and people are so appreciative to receive it,” Bartles said.
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‘The workforce issue is a really big deal’
Between the anticipated 5.25% increase in Medicaid reimbursements for many of Hope Haven’s services, resulting from Iowa’s most recent legislative session and money expected to come from the American Rescue Plan, “it’s actually a brighter picture economically than it has been for quite some time for organizations like us,” Bartles said. “But the workforce issue is a really big deal.”
Hope Haven is far from alone in its struggle to find workers.
Bartles has spoken with numerous area employers having the same issue, many of whom come to Hope Haven in search of potential hires.
More than 200 people with disabilities who receive services through Hope Haven are employed somewhere in southeast Iowa.
The organization’s job coaches serve those with disabilities entering the workforce, to help them find success in their new position, however, a shortage of job coaches is hindering those employment efforts.
“The demand for our workers greatly exceeds the ability of us to have enough job coaches to place all of those people and do a good job of making sure they succeed, so there really is a workforce crisis out there, and the silver lining in the cloud is people with disabilities are able to get work easier than used to be the case, and we’re really trying to help that happen,” Bartles said.
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Bartles believes the current workforce shortage is a sign of a crisis that will not be fully resolved when Iowa stops providing $300 Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments after June 12.
“Most people, I think, want the security and reward of being employed, and often there’s a reason if somebody stays unemployed for an extended period of time, like childcare or physical frailty,” Bartles said. “(The end of $300 unemployment payments) has got to help a little, but not enough. Not nearly enough.”
How can southeastern Iowa solve its workforce shortage?
According to Iowa Workforce Development data, Des Moines County’s unemployment rate in April was 5.7% (down from 6.1% in March). During the same month, 17,210 people were employed in the county, while the labor force, or the number of people able to work, was 18,250.
As of Friday, 1,504 full- and part-time jobs within a 20-mile radius of Burlington were listed on Indeed.com.
The listing does not provide a complete picture of southeast Iowa’s workforce needs, as some of those listings are for remote work, and it does not include postings from all area employers, nor does it include the number of openings available for a single position.
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Bartles believes the solution to southeast Iowa’s workforce shortage is to draw people in from other areas, though this has proven to be difficult as the cost to move is high.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development defines affordable housing as one that a household can obtain for 30% or less of its income.
By that definition, a single person working full-time earning $15 per hour would pay $720 per month (the median cost for a one-bedroom apartment in Burlington is about $660). Throw in a security deposit and the initial cost to rent is at least $1,480. That, combined with car payments, health insurance payments and regular bills can be daunting.
“We’ve tried to attract workers who are not from around here, and my experience of that so far … housing, transportation, good schools and a wage, the least of which would be 15 bucks an hour, the very lowest that would attract them, are key issues,” Bartles said, adding the ability to find people with common interests in the area is another factor. “So I think the solution to our workforce shortage in southeast Iowa is being able to attract people who are not from around here, whether it’s legal immigrants or if it’s people like the folks from Puerto Rico, but it’s not just wages to get folks to come here. It’s housing, wages, schools and transportation.
“I think that we could get together, employers could, and see if we can pay that $15 an hour, help in the development of affordable housing, see if we can find a way for people to have transportation when they first arrive, because they’re often broke. Completely broke.”
The Hawk Eye would like to examine how southeast Iowa’s workforce has been and will be shaped by the pandemic. If you are an employer struggling to find workers or someone who will be impacted by Iowa’s discontinuance of Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation payments and are willing to share your story, please email mniehaus@thehawkeye.com.
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