‘Vigorous Hiring’ Climate Gives Metro Top Summer Jobs Rating by Forbes

If your college-aged kid is home for the summer and is looking for a job, here’s some good news:

The best place in America to find a summer job is in the back yard:

This week, Forbes magazine said the Des Moines-West Des Moines areas are prime picking grounds for summer employment. The metro area’s No. 1 ranking was based on a Manpower Group survey.

Jay Byers, the chief executive officer of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, said he’s not surprised by the city’s top ranking.

“We’ve seen a remarkable resurgence in economic activity in Greater Des Moines in the last year,” he told Forbes. “We’ve celebrated a number of recent business expansions and relocations, including a $250 million reinvestment by The Principal Financial Group in its downtown campus, a $100 million expansion by Wells Fargo Mortgage at its West Des Moines campus, and Facebook’s announcement of a $1.5 billion data center in nearby Altoona. These announcements have fueled what is a palpable optimism across our region.”

That’s thank to employers big employers like Wells Fargo, Aviva, Principal Financial, Hy-Vee supermarkets, ING, Iowa Health Systems, Nationwide, John Deere, and Mercy Medical Center.

Two of the companies, Wells Fargo and Aviva, have sprawling headquarters in West Des Moines, and most have a major presence.

Both are big employers in the financial services sector, one of two “vibrant industry clusters” in the region, Byes said. Agribusiness and bioscience is another big employment sector.

Both sectors are seeing growth, creating an atmosphere of “vigorous hiring” in the construction trades for licensed professionals, he said. Wells Fargo, for example, recently announced a major expansion of its West Des Moines campus that will add up to 100 jobs.

There are also numerous job openings in the technology field, another strong economic sector in West Des Moines. “Everyone ... seems to have technology positions to fill,” Byers said. “We’ve seen dozens of IT recruitment shops open here within the last year.”