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Responding to Area WARN Notices
Greater Dubuque Development is dedicated to supporting workers impacted by layoffs and business closures in the region. By closely monitoring Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) announcements, media advisories, and maintaining relationships with workforce and economic development partners in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, we stay informed about regional employer changes. This enables us to effectively support affected workers by connecting them with resources and potential career opportunities, while also representing our Workforce Solutions Investors and their job postings on AccessDubuqueJobs.com.
Each WARN event is unique, and Greater Dubuque assesses the appropriate level of engagement for each situation. For events in the immediate Greater Dubuque region, our focus is to retain impacted employees within our area. For events in neighboring territories, we assess the skill sets represented by the affected worker pool to see if they match with the needs of employers in the Greater Dubuque region. When these align, we take action to attract these impacted workers to our market through strategies such as providing information for worker information packets, participating in worker information meetings and job fairs, and launching targeted digital marketing campaigns to promote AccessDubuqueJobs.com.
Our ongoing engagement with Northeast Iowa's workforce development system, including Greater Dubuque Development staff serving on the Northeast Iowa Workforce Development Board, positions us to act swiftly in the event of area closures and layoffs. Through our participation in their Rapid Response services, we are able to connect with impacted workers to share career and education opportunities alongside other regional partners.
In Illinois and Wisconsin, where WARN announcements are managed differently, we collaborate with partners like Northwest Central Illinois Works and the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board. These partnerships, managed through our quarterly Tri-State Economic Development Practitioners meetings and ongoing communications, help us retain or recruit talent affected by layoffs or closures across the region.
In 2024 thus far, we have engaged with workers impacted by the following WARN events. Those WARN events followed by an asterisk below, are ongoing efforts as of 6/20/2024:
We encourage employers in the region to keep us abreast of their recruitment needs and insure their career opportunities on AccessDubuqueJobs.com are current, especially when pulling in new talent from outside of our immediate region is an identified need. As we monitor closures or layoffs in and surrounding the Greater Dubuque region, our efforts can enhance and complement your recruitment strategies to attract dislocated workers to opportunities available on the ground here. Through proactive and collaborative efforts, Greater Dubuque Development ensures that our region remains resilient and our workforce stays strong, even in challenging times.
For more information or if you have questions about our WARN related efforts, contact Nic Hockenberry, Director of Workforce Programming at nicolash@greaterdubuque.org or 563-557-9049.
Your support can be great here.