Dubois County gets outside assessment to boost jobs and growth

Dubois County’s next economic moves may hinge on where the county can compete best, where employers keep hitting friction, and how quickly local leaders can turn that into action. A new outside assessment completed by the Southwest Indiana Development Council with Ginovus looked across a 10-county Southwest Indiana region that includes Dubois County and a workforce of more than 590,000 Hoosiers.

The review was designed to modernize business development outreach and inquiry responses, and to recommend best practices for how communities handle business inquiries and site-selection requests. That makes the report more than a marketing exercise for Jasper, Huntingburg, Ferdinand and Holland. It is also a test of whether Dubois County can present itself the way companies and site selectors evaluate places to invest: what sites are ready, what labor pool is available, and what gaps still stand in the way.

SWIDC first said in December 2025 that its work with Ginovus would focus on regional marketing, site-selector best practices and refining the workforce story. The completed assessment now puts those goals into one regional framework, with Dubois County listed by SWIDC as one of its ten Indiana counties alongside Crawford, Daviess, Harrison, Knox, Martin, Orange, Perry, Pike and Spencer counties.

The stakes are familiar locally. A 2023 report said Dubois County had a 2.3% unemployment rate, about 750 people over age 16 seeking work, and roughly 6,000 people who filed taxes outside the county but worked for employers within it. That commuter pattern suggests the county already supplies labor to area employers, but also shows how much paychecks, spending and tax base leak beyond county lines when jobs are not matched to local housing, talent retention and employer growth.

Dubois Strong, the county’s economic development public-private partnership, has said its priorities include workforce attraction and retention, small-business start-ups, industrial site selection and broadband development. The county has also taken part in regional talent efforts, including the Southern Indiana Gateway 21st Century Talent Region designation and earlier work tied to Radius Indiana and Choose Southern Indiana.

Choose Southern Indiana said in 2023 it had welcomed 44 movers from 15 states and four countries, while Dubois Strong has said its relocation impact grant program offered $5,000 grants to out-of-state workers who move to Dubois County and stay at least two years. Taken together, the new assessment and those earlier efforts point to a county trying to sell itself with more precision, not just more enthusiasm, as it works to hold young workers, attract new ones and give local employers a stronger case for growing here.