Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA

Metropolitan statistical area, CBSA 19780 · 41.58, -93.76

3 findings fired for Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA this run, against a typical home value of $292,513 in September 2026 and covered employment of 400,228 in 2026 Q1.

Jobs, OEWS
404,130
as of May 2025
  • 83rd pct · 65th of 393 US metro areas · median 105,500

Total employment in the BLS OEWS occupational tables for this metro area. It is an occupational survey total, not the QCEW payroll count below.

Jobs, county rollup
400,228
as of 2026 Q1

An estimate: the sum of the member counties BLS publishes, not BLS's own metro row, whose boundaries follow each year's delineation. The arithmetic is printed below.

Typical home value
$292,513
as of 2026-09
  • 46th pct · 203rd of 379 US metro areas · median $305,707

Zillow Home Value Index, metro file, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.

Typical rent
$1,280
as of 2026-09
  • 23rd pct · 294th of 382 US metro areas · median $1,504

Zillow Observed Rent Index, metro file.

Price-to-rent
19.0years of rent
as of 2026-09
  • 71st pct · 108th of 379 US metro areas · median 16.9

typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month.

Home value, 1-yr
0.5%
as of 2026-09
  • 26th pct · 278th of 379 US metro areas · median 2.0%

Zillow's own twelve-month change on the metro row.

A percentile here is a min-max scaling of average rank: the smallest published value in the cohort is 0 and the largest is 100, and tied values share the average of the ranks they span. It is not the share of entities below the value, so 0 means smallest, not none below. Entities that did not publish the metric are outside the cohort entirely and are counted in neither the rank nor its denominator.

Occupation mix #

currentas of May 2025retrieved 2026-10-20

The 30 largest detailed occupations and all 22 SOC major groups in Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA, from the bundled BLS OEWS release.

Top 30 detailed occupations by employment, Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA, OEWS May 2025.
SOCOccupationJobsMean annual wageLocation quotient
43-4051Customer Service Representatives12,070$51,2001.79
41-2031Retail Salespersons11,000$35,6001.09
35-3023Fast Food and Counter Workers10,060$29,9401.00
41-2011Cashiers8,720$31,5001.09
11-1021General and Operations Managers8,370$117,4300.92
29-1141Registered Nurses8,130$81,7100.93
53-3032Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers7,840$63,4801.46
53-7065Stockers and Order Fillers7,430$39,2201.01
53-7062Laborers and Freight, Stock, and Material Movers, Hand7,000$45,1600.91
35-3031Waiters and Waitresses6,250$27,2401.06
31-1120Home Health and Personal Care Aides6,210$36,8200.55
43-9061Office Clerks, General6,010$46,8900.94
37-2011Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners5,720$36,2701.00
25-9045Teaching Assistants, Except Postsecondary5,140$33,0801.39
13-1199Business Operations Specialists, All Other5,130$95,3301.82
41-4012Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products4,900$77,9401.52
13-2011Accountants and Auditors4,850$87,2501.29
31-1131Nursing Assistants4,660$42,6401.24
15-1252Software Developers4,240$122,9800.97
11-3031Financial Managers3,800$166,2001.74
49-9071Maintenance and Repair Workers, General3,780$54,5000.95
43-3031Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks3,670$52,6601.03
25-2021Elementary School Teachers, Except Special Education3,640$59,4001.01
47-2061Construction Laborers3,510$54,0001.23
53-3033Light Truck Drivers3,470$45,7801.36
13-1161Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists3,440$81,8701.47
35-2014Cooks, Restaurant3,320$36,9800.91
43-6014Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive3,110$48,7000.70
43-1011First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers3,100$72,9400.83
41-3021Insurance Sales Agents2,940$77,5902.36
All 22 SOC major groups, Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA, OEWS May 2025.
SOCOccupationJobsMean annual wageLocation quotient
43-0000Office and Administrative Support Occupations49,810$52,0101.08
41-0000Sales and Related Occupations38,890$53,2901.11
13-0000Business and Financial Operations Occupations35,200$89,4101.29
53-0000Transportation and Material Moving Occupations34,800$49,5500.98
35-0000Food Preparation and Serving Related Occupations33,400$31,9800.94
11-0000Management Occupations29,300$135,6101.01
25-0000Educational Instruction and Library Occupations23,060$52,2800.97
29-0000Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations22,540$98,7800.88
47-0000Construction and Extraction Occupations19,550$65,5001.17
51-0000Production Occupations18,150$51,5500.82
15-0000Computer and Mathematical Occupations17,190$102,2701.26
49-0000Installation, Maintenance, and Repair Occupations15,580$61,9100.98
31-0000Healthcare Support Occupations15,140$41,4100.74
37-0000Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations11,150$39,0400.94
39-0000Personal Care and Service Occupations9,130$36,8501.08
33-0000Protective Service Occupations6,620$62,2300.67
21-0000Community and Social Service Occupations6,120$57,8900.88
27-0000Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media Occupations5,790$61,3901.09
17-0000Architecture and Engineering Occupations4,850$91,8700.71
19-0000Life, Physical, and Social Science Occupations3,970$84,0401.04
23-0000Legal Occupations3,390$115,1301.00
45-0000Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations490$46,9700.43

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, metropolitan area tables, committed to this repository rather than fetched. A location quotient above 1 means the occupation is more concentrated here than in the United States as a whole; wages are means, not medians, and BLS suppresses a wage where its sample is too thin.

Housing #

currentas of 2026-09retrieved 2026-10-20

The typical home in the Des Moines, IA metro was worth $292,513 in September 2026.

25 months to September 2026. Rent: $1,280 in September 2026.

Zillow's metro row was matched to this CBSA BY NAME, not by a shared code: Zillow titles metros short ("Austin, TX") where the Census titles them long. Both series are Zillow's own smoothed indices of the middle third of the market, not sale prices.

Employment, rolled up from member counties #

currentas of 2026 Q1retrieved 2026-10-20

About 400,228 covered jobs across the 6 member counties BLS published.

  • jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 6 of 6 member counties BLS publishes.
  • 400,228 = 55,941 + 3,085 + 10,832 + 4,168 + 312,929 + 13,273
The 6 counties the place manifest assigns to CBSA 19780.
CountyFIPS
Dallas County, IA19049
Guthrie County, IA19077
Jasper County, IA19099
Madison County, IA19121
Polk County, IA19153
Warren County, IA19181

There are no QCEW metro employment totals here, and that is a property of the data rather than an omission: BLS does publish MSA area codes (C####), but lib/economy's QCEW reader handles only county (SSCCC), state (SS000) and national (US000) rows at aggregation levels 74, 54 and 14, and the /api/economy route regex rejects anything else. So this figure is a sum of member counties, labelled an estimate, with every county it could not count named.

National indicator context #

currentretrieved 2026-10-20

None of these series is keyed to this metro area. They are national, gauge, single-state or port series, shown as context for the numbers above.

The national indicator set, filtered by lens only.
IndicatorLatestUnitStatus
Mississippi River at Memphis, stagenot publishedftno data
Mississippi River at St. Louis, stagenot publishedftno data
Ohio River at Louisville, stage17.40ftok
Missouri River at St. Joseph, stagenot publishedftno data
Colorado River below Hoover Dam, flow (Hoover releases)5,170.00ft³/sok
Texas reservoirs, statewide percent full72.20%ok
Laredo truck crossings, monthly255,129.00trucksok
Los Angeles + Long Beach container volume, annual10,513,167.00TEUwatch
Containerships waiting for a berth, all US ports7.00shipsok
Shanghai to Los Angeles container rate7,848.00$ per 40 ft boxwatch
US diesel retail pricenot published$ per gallonno data
WTI crude oil, spot101.91$ per barrelwatch
30-year fixed mortgage rate7.40%watch
Housing starts, annual rate1,221.00thousands of unitsok
Building permits, annual rate1,400.00thousands of unitsok
Case-Shiller US home price index337.31index, Jan 2000 = 100ok
Unemployment rate4.20%ok
US goods and services trade balance, monthly-105,572.00$ millionsok
Retail sales excluding food services, monthly652,115.00$ millionsok

lib/indicators has no geographic selection: every registry entry is a United States, gauge, Texas, port, crossing or world series, and no entry is metro-keyed. Reading these as this metro's own readings would be wrong.

What changed #

currentretrieved 2026-10-20

Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA: 3 findings, 3 noted

  1. noteThe next Unemployment rate (BLS Employment Situation, monthly) covering Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA is due between 2026-10-30 and 2026-11-13, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.

    Show the arithmetic
    • window = 2026-10-30 to 2026-11-13, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern

    estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date

  2. noteThe next Zillow ZHVI typical home value (monthly) covering Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA is due between 2026-11-14 and 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.

    Show the arithmetic
    • window = 2026-11-14 to 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern

    estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date

  3. noteThe next Zillow ZORI typical rent (monthly) covering Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA is due between 2026-11-14 and 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern.

    Show the arithmetic
    • window = 2026-11-14 to 2026-11-21, estimated from the publisher's past release pattern

    estimated from the publisher's past release pattern; not an announced date

The full Des Moines, IA brief, with the arithmetic behind every sentence.

Metro briefs are thinner by construction: with no QCEW metro path, their findings come from Zillow's metro home value and rent rows, the county rollup, and nearby crossings and ports.

Sources #

  • publishedOccupational Employment and Wage StatisticsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsopen the source
    MSA 19780, all occupations · period May 2025 · retrieved 2026-10-20
  • estimateQuarterly Census of Employment and WagesU.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-20 · jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 6 of 6 member counties BLS publishes. 400,228 = 55,941 + 3,085 + 10,832 + 4,168 + 312,929 + 13,273
  • publishedZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    Metro_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv · period 2026-09 · retrieved 2026-10-20
  • publishedZillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv · period 2026-09 · retrieved 2026-10-20
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-20 · typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month
  • estimateZillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-20 · month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns
  • estimateZillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI)Zillow Researchopen the source
    · retrieved 2026-10-20 · month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns

Citations

  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics. series MSA 19780, all occupations. period May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm. accessed 2026-10-20.
  • U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. https://www.bls.gov/cew/. accessed 2026-10-20. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: jobs = sum of QCEW third-month employment across the 6 of 6 member counties BLS publishes. 400,228 = 55,941 + 3,085 + 10,832 + 4,168 + 312,929 + 13,273.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). series Metro_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv. period 2026-09. https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zhvi/Metro_zhvi_uc_sfrcondo_tier_0.33_0.67_sm_sa_month.csv. accessed 2026-10-20.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI). series Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv. period 2026-09. https://files.zillowstatic.com/research/public_csvs/zori/Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_month.csv. accessed 2026-10-20.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-20. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: typical home value / (typical rent × 12); Zillow ZHVI over ZORI, same month.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-20. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns.
  • Zillow Research. Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI). https://www.zillow.com/research/data/. accessed 2026-10-20. estimate computed by Embedding Atlas: month-over-month percent change = (newest month − previous month) / |previous month| × 100, from Zillow's own published month columns.

What these numbers are not

  • There is no metro market report: MarketReport describes a county or a state, and BLS QCEW's own metro rows follow each year's delineation, so they are not used here. The metro page shows Zillow's own metro rows and a county-rollup employment estimate with its arithmetic instead.
  • Zillow's metro row was matched to this CBSA BY NAME (Zillow titles metros short, "Austin, TX", where the Census titles them long), not by a shared code. RegionID 394531.
  • Metro employment is an ESTIMATE: the sum of the member counties BLS did publish, not BLS QCEW's own metro row, whose boundaries follow each year's delineation. Withheld counties are named and excluded, never zeroed.
  • The indicator block is the NATIONAL set, filtered only by lens. None of these series is keyed to this place: they are United States, gauge, single-state or port series and they are shown as context, not as this place's own readings.

Page assembled 2026-10-20T19:36:02.407Z. Place identity tables pulled 2026-10-01.