Greene County Development Corporation is teaming up with area employers and a consulting company to draw on a different population demographic to fill available jobs.

Latino IQ helps cities, counties and politicians better understand the Latino community to connect employers with employees, as well as voters. They can also help individuals or groups communicate and market to the Latino community. Vice President of Client Services Carlos Arguello says their immediate goal is to find employees for the major area employers that have over 200 available jobs right now in Greene County.

“I mean it could be really anybody helping these positions, but the reason why we are focusing on Latino in this area is because the stats tell us that if we’re looking the biggest pool of candidates that growth and those numbers, that trend comes from Latino demographic today in Iowa and it is the fastest growing demographic.”

Arguello points out as work continues with employers, there might be some stigmas when it comes to diversifying a community like Greene County, which according to the 2020 U.S. Census, Greene County was just over 94-percent white, but saw a 49-percent Hispanic population increase compared to 2010.

“Really educating our community, talking about the why, the what, the when and the how, and really how it benefits us all. We’ve seen that before and there’s that we can do where we can totally eliminate it, we’re just here to make it better.”

Arguello says they are currently working with county employers to develop the infrastructure that is needed to bring in Latinos and the other phases they want to work on is having them live and play in Greene County.