(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham, says improving Iowa’s tax and regulatory climate has been the “North Star” during her tenure as the state’s top economic development official.

Durham, who served as IEDA’s Director since 2011, says she’s focused on selling Iowa as home base to businesses and well as young professionals in their 20s, 30s and 40s.

Durham says in the past year 33-hundred people interested in moving have responded and those leads are being passed on to officials in Iowa cities and communities that match their interests. Durham says it’s part of talent recruitment efforts to address workforce concerns. In early 2020, more than 70 percent of Iowans above the age of 15 who were able to work were working. But nearly six years after the pandemic started, Durham says Iowa’s labor participation rate hasn’t fully recovered.

Durham’s agency will launch new talent recruitment efforts next year focused on sectors like health care that need more workers.