Des Moines, Iowa — Iowa’s unemployment rate increased to three-point-three percent in November. That’s six-tenths of a percent higher than it was in July and the fourth consecutive month it has inched up. But the lowest unemployment continues to be in northwest Iowa.
Beth Townsend, director of the Iowa Workforce Development agency, says there were about a thousand job losses in Iowa’s professional and business services sector in November — including a reduction in administrative support staff.
Just over 68 percent of Iowans who are 16 or older and actively seeking employment were working in November — that’s about five points higher than the national average.
There were about 100 layoffs in Iowa’s manufacturing sector in November, but Townsend says that compared to the beginning of the year, there were about three thousand more people employed in Iowa manufacturing by the end of November. The most job GROWTH in November came in Iowa’s construction industry, which added 18 hundred jobs.
About a thousand jobs were added in the financial services sector in November.
Townsend says 11 hundred people were hired in November to work in Iowa hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care settings.
The state’s IowaWORKS website lists 62-thousand job openings today. According to government data, more than one point-six million people are working in Iowa. The national unemployment rate dropped to three-point-seven percent in November.
The latest county-by-county figures are the seasonally unadjusted numbers for October. At that point, the lowest unemployment in the state was in Sioux County, with just 1.9 percent unemployment. Lyon County had the second-lowest unemployment with 2.2 percent. Osceola wasn’t far behind with 2.3 percent, and O’Brien County had 2.5 percent.
