Statewide Iowa — Iowa’s unemployment rate increased slightly in August, the first uptick in several months.
Iowa Workforce Development executive director, Beth Townsend, says conditions on the national level factor in.
Iowa’s unemployment rate rose from two-point-seven percent (2.7%) in July to two-point-nine percent (2.9%) in August, while that national rate increased from three-point-five percent (3.5%) to three-point-eight percent (3.8). She says those national economic factors can impact the decisions of Iowa businesses.
Townsend says there were gains in some areas.
Townsend says Iowa’s job market remains very strong.
Some critics say the jobs people are getting are not paying enough for them to live on. Townsend says there are good wages being paid in a lot of areas.
Townsend says for example, health care and social assistance jobs are starting at 20 to 25 dollars an hour. And manufacturing saw an increase of 600 jobs with pay in those jobs starting well above 15 dollars an hour.
The latest county-by-county figures available are for the the month of July, and at that time, northwest Iowa again had some of the lowest unemployment in the state. In fact, Lyon County had the lowest unemployment in Iowa at 1.8 percent. Second place was Ida County with 1.9 percent. Then it was Sioux County with 2.0, followed by Osceola County with 2.1. Pocahontas County also had 2.1 percent unemployment. Four counties had 2.2 percent, and five counties had 2.3 percent. O’Brien, Dickinson, Chickasaw, and Dallas counties all had 2.4 percent.
