Employment in Des Moine (Des Moines: cost of living, businesses, cost)

[Luke9686]

I know how diverse it is. Born and raised there. The economy may be stronger than most of the nation's, but I highly doubt its an economic dream.

[ehenningsen]

Originally Posted by Luke9686

I know how diverse it is. Born and raised there. The economy may be stronger than most of the nation's, but I highly doubt its an economic dream.

It clearly is, not just diversity of jobs, but Des Moines ranks extemely high for wages and cost of living placing it year in and out as one of the best places to have extra cash.. It is an economic dream compared to most places...

[zz4guy]

Lets see top employers are state government, insurance firms, public school systems, banks and.... Hy Vee. Not the most inviting industries unless you're into pushing paper and spending other people's money.

[DMRyan]

From the Greater Des Moines Partnership:

Principal Financial Group – Financial services

Wells Fargo and Co. – Financial services

Iowa Health – Des Moines – Healthcare

Mercy Hospital Medical Center – Healthcare

Hy-Vee Food Stores – Retail grocery and drugstore chain

Allied/Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. – Direct property and casualty insurance carriers

Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. – Crop inputs for worldwide agribusiness

United Parcel Service – Logistics and distribution, transportation and fregith, customers brokerage

BFS North American Tire, LLC (broken link) – Agricultural tires

Wellmark Inc. -- Health insurance, Medicare PDFP/PPO/supplement, dental, flex, HSs/HRAs

Communications Data Services Inc. -- Magazine and product fulfillment, data capture, direct marketing services

John Deere Des Moines Works -- Agricultural machinery

MidAmerican Energy Company -- Energy services

Must be diverse enough to draw people to the Des Moines area. Two factories, a biotech/ag company, UPS with a hub among the financial, government and retail businesses/operations here. Besides more a university or military presence, I don't know how much more diverse an economy can be in an Iowa city.

[DSMGuy]

ZZ regroups and lamely charges back in his one man "disinformation campaign." LOL!

[zz4guy]

Why did you leave out state, local government and schools?

They dwarf the other so called "diverse" industries you guys have there. Grocery stores and hospitals lol! Now that's high tech!!

[Go Ne]

But who runs all of those Grocery Stores? High paid Executives. And I'm sure Doctors and Nurses make quite a bit too. And ofcourse the Schools will be one of the largest, they usually are in all cities, and Government is in Capital Cities too. All this does is help Des Moines' economy, plus the insurance, high tech and financial industries.

[postmortem]

Originally Posted by DMRyan

From the Greater Des Moines Partnership:

Principal Financial Group – Financial services

Wells Fargo and Co. – Financial services

Iowa Health – Des Moines – Healthcare

Mercy Hospital Medical Center – Healthcare

Hy-Vee Food Stores – Retail grocery and drugstore chain

Allied/Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. – Direct property and casualty insurance carriers

Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc. – Crop inputs for worldwide agribusiness

United Parcel Service – Logistics and distribution, transportation and fregith, customers brokerage

BFS North American Tire, LLC (broken link) – Agricultural tires

Wellmark Inc. -- Health insurance, Medicare PDFP/PPO/supplement, dental, flex, HSs/HRAs

Communications Data Services Inc. -- Magazine and product fulfillment, data capture, direct marketing services

John Deere Des Moines Works -- Agricultural machinery

MidAmerican Energy Company -- Energy services

Must be diverse enough to draw people to the Des Moines area. Two factories, a biotech/ag company, UPS with a hub among the financial, government and retail businesses/operations here. Besides more a university or military presence, I don't know how much more diverse an economy can be in an Iowa city.

Not a single high tech company. Draws only businesses that are focused on 1. finding cheap labor in USA and 2. enjoying tax breaks. So that results in a such labor coming to Des Moines.

Microsoft addition is that: a data center, hardly a high tech, with heavy tax breaks. Microsoft is coming Iowa because it is cheap and they really don't need anybody talented for data center.

So that is what Des Moines is - a cheap India in United States. There's no real state-of-the-art stuff happening there.

[DSMGuy]

Yep cheap labor alright. With all the PhD scientists at Pioneer & Monsanto and MBA's (and computer science majors) running around the major financial services companies, it is pretty low end stuff here. That's right.

My guess is if any of these companies announced they were looking to move to another Iowa location, every city in the state would be on their knees begging for them to locate there... even whatever "grand" city you're from.

Or maybe whatever utopian burg you're from doesn't need another "low end" company. You must tell us where you're from so we stand in awe of it.

[DSMGuy]

Couple other anti-troll remarks...

1. DM never claimed to be a high tech hotbed, but tech is growing and part of a balanced economy here. There are few legitimate high tech hotbeds in the US and none of them are in Iowa. Places may go around claiming they are a high tech hotbed, but it is phony marketing gimmickry and makes you look stupid.

2. You dismiss Microsoft's data center. I haven't met too many dumb hardware/network people. I'm sure it takes brains to maintain the massive server farm they are building here. While they may not be the geniuses that are in Redmond, they are going to average about $70K per year, which is not all that bad. Which I'm sure your dream city would welcome those jobs.

I'm sure Omaha/CB (Google data center & Yahoo soon) and Des Moines (Microsoft) would have loved to have had the entire company locate in their cities rather than just a data center, but that's not going to happen.

3. Tax breaks? Yes Iowa needs to give tax breaks because of the punishing corporate tax structure here. Even ZZ knows that. Otherwise no company would locate here.