Since labor availability is a nationwide concern, a community with low unemployment rates may not receive full consideration, even if its other characteristics are positive.

During site searches for corporate clients who will be hiring people with skills and experience, my organization -- The Pathfinders -- discourages those clients from giving more than passing consideration to unemployment rates.

The fallacy of unemployment rates in the site search is that when the facility is actually ready for occupancy, generally only a small percent of new hires come from the ranks of the unemployed.

That is especially true for known companies that pay good wages and are hiring skilled or semi-skilled people.

A quality new employer in a community will rely primarily on the ranks of the underemployed to staff its new operation.

The underemployed are found among employed people who have the skills, experience and education to qualify them for better jobs and better pay.

A company need not be in a place with high unemployment.

Rather, it needs a location where people are concentrated who have the right skills and experience and who would change jobs at acceptable rates of pay.

Those surveys have demonstrated that there are significant numbers of underemployed people in virtually every community, and that the costs, experience and education of members of that hidden work force vary widely from community to community.

For example, the survey we conducted for the Evansville, Ind.,-Henderson, Ky., area documented a large number of underemployed people, heretofore invisible to prospects and existing businesses alike.

These are workers who possessed the skills and experience new employers require and which would qualify them for the pay they desired to change jobs.

Twenty percent of them merited, and would take, a new job for less than $10 per hour.

In comparison, the northeast Louisiana work force audit we conducted documented different levels of skills, education and experience at costs somewhat lower for underemployed workers in that region than in Indiana.

When American International Insurance selected Broome County in New York as a location for a 500-person call center, its decision was based largely on the results of our survey, which showed a sufficient number of underemployed people available at a reasonable cost with the skills and experience they needed.

Companies considering a new location for an operation should look beyond unemployment rates in consideration of available labor.

If the positions in the new operation require any skills, education or experience, the chances are that staff for those new positions will come from the hidden work force in a community: the underemployed.

The number of underemployed in a community can be determined and their cost, skills, experience and education can be quantified.

Joe M. White is president of The Pathfinders, a Dallas-based consulting organization in business since 1980. He can be reached at (972) 387-3750, by fax at (972) 387-5701, or by e-mail at white2735@aol.com.