While the unemployment rate in Iowa remains near record lows, it’s not all good news for businesses and industry.

Talent Acquisition Manager Whitney Wilkinson with Vermeer Corporation tells KNIA/KRLS News it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find qualified applicants for numerous openings in the company.

“In the State of Iowa almost 12,000 manufacturing jobs were added in 2017,” she says. “So we have big goals as a company and we have strong initiatives that we really believe in, and when unemployment is so low and talent is so scarce, it’s difficult to reach those goals.

Wilkinson says low unemployment also means less mobility in the workforce, which often means talent for expansion can be hard to come by–especially in rural areas.

“From a manufacturing perspective, some of the challenges that we see are just bottlenecks in certain areas, or not being able to focus on research and development as much because we’re focused more on how we are going to get the product out the door.”

She says there are numerous opportunities in the company at the moment both on the plant floor and in the office.

According to the latest from Iowa Workforce Development, the unemployment rate in December of 2017 was 2.2 percent in Marion County. Hear more about Vermeer and how the unemployment rate impacts the corporation’s workforce on today’s Let’s Talk Pella.