ProVenture – Labor Market Research (Selected Markets)

Challenge

The availability of skilled labor has been an increasingly important factor in site location decisions. For corporate decision-makers, it is no longer sufficient to understand the overall supply of workers; investment decisions often depend on the ability to demonstrate a likely pool of workers with specific skills.

Response

Nashville-based industrial real estate firm ProVenture engaged TIP Strategies to conduct labor market research for two separate site selection opportunities in 2017. For the first project, TIP examined the distribution of employment in the bakeries industry in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area generally and within a 30-minute drive time of three potential sites. In addition to a map of companies in the bakeries industry in the region, the profile provided a comparison of wage rates for key occupations and an estimated supply of workers in those occupations, including the estimated distribution of these workers relative to the sites under consideration. TIP was re-engaged by ProVenure to create two similar profiles in conjunction with a proposed warehousing and distribution operation: one for the Columbus, OH, metropolitan area and one for a collection of sites in eastern Pennsylvania stretching along the I-78/I-81 corridor from Shippensburg to Allentown.