That puts the area at just an acceptable level, but Keeney said it could be much worse. In the 60s, there was less than 1 percent unemployment, but in the 80s, we had police on standby due to unemployment problems. People just wouldn t leave without referrals. Now we have quite a balance, he said. Hart says as the Quad-City labor force has grown, there has been good expansion in terms of jobs.
Wage growth is good as well.
Where we haven t seen much success is in population changes. It s actually putting pressure on the wages because, if you have more jobs chasing fewer people, wages have to go up, he said. Iowa City and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, have had what Keeney calls phenomenal growth in their labor force. The biggest reason for this is the increase in the transportation communications sector, like MCI and McLeod in Cedar Rapids. They employ a great deal of people, he said.