Northwest Iowa — The latest unemployment numbers show Lyon and Sioux counties continue to have the lowest unemployment in the state. Meanwhile, the latest numbers available show the state unemployment rate held steady at three-point-one percent in December.
Iowa Workforce Development director, Beth Townsend, says there were some positive signs as the year wrapped up.
The labor force participation rate dropped slightly as Townsend says about 17-hundred people dropped out of the workforce.
Townsend says the state entered 2023 on good footing in the face of some ongoing national issues.
Employers continue to cite the need for more skilled workers, and she says that’s one thing Iowa Workforce Development will continue working on.
She says there are a lot of good programs trying to create employee pipelines that are crucial to fixing the workforce crisis employers face.
The latest numbers available for local unemployment are those from November. Workforce officials remind us that these numbers are not seasonally adjusted.
Sioux County remains the county with the lowest unemployment in the state, at 1.7 percent, unchanged from the previous month. Lyon County has the second-lowest unemployment, at 1.9 percent, up a tenth of a percent from the previous month, when it was 1.8 percent. Unemployment in Osceola and O’Brien counties remains low as well. Osceola County’s unemployment was at 2.0 percent in November, up from 1.8 percent in October. And in O’Brien County, unemployment is at 2.4 percent, up from 2.1 percent the month before.
