The availability of skilled labor and the cost of labor are two very important factors in selecting a location for a business expansion or relocation. To aid business executives and site selection consultants in their site selection, O'Brien County has developed two tools for assessing our labor market:

1.      Skills Ready Model: This interactive Internet model allows you to enter the number of workers by occupation for your project. The Model will generate a custom report for you that will show the number of workers and wages by occupation in our labor market for your project. In addition, for each occupation the report also lists the number of workers in our labor market that work in the sector and have WorkKeys/National Career Readiness Certificate skills that are compatible to those required for the occupation. We have developed Models for our target industry sectors – Manufacturing and Logistics.

2.      Skills Ready Profile: This document provides an overview of our labor market that includes employment and occupation information by industry and occupation. Employment and wage information are shown for all of the Manufacturing and Logistics occupations in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) System for each of the target industry sectors.

 obriencounty.skillsready.com