Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) president Nicole Crain says 63% of members still plan to make capital expenditures in the fourth quarter.
“We’ve seen that number this year be between 60 and 70%, which is really remarkable,” she says. “That shows that Iowa companies and Iowa manufacturing, they’re investing in their businesses, they’re investing in their buildings and their equipment. So that’s really great to see.”
Forty-seven percent of their members expect their sales to expand in the quarter. She says they are feeling things are stable right now. “Last year in July, as we entered that third quarter, things were a little bit different, and then that’s when the tax bill at the federal level was passed. And that’s when we really started seeing things take off for businesses,” Crain says. “They’re like, okay, we know this is what our tax policy is going to be. And so I think as you see these numbers, this reflects people saying, okay, things are stable. Yes, there’s peaks in valleys, But overall, our business is stable. We’re in a good spot.”
Crain says getting the workforce they need is still a concern. “Finding people isn’t really the challenge for most of our members. You know, of course, they’re always looking for more and the right people, but it’s really that retraining,” she says. Crain says the ABI foundation has continued to work on the training aspect and are reaching out to younger people to get them on track early.
She says the announcement of the plan for a steel mill in southeast is a big boost for them. “We think that reflects more than two decades of work by ABI, by our association. we’re statewide, to really better our state’s regulatory and tax climate. And we’re glad to see that companies are choosing to grow and locate in Iowa,” she says.
Crain says the announcement of the new plant reinforces the optimism among members. “Because it does recognize what our members who are here and our continuing like I said on this with capital expenditures to invest, what they’ve known for a long time, Iowa is open for business and we are a great place for manufacturing we’re number one in our GDP that’s our number one GDP is manufacturing,” Crain says.
ABI has member companies representing all industries and sizes in all 99 Iowa counties.
