DES MOINES — Iowa’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased slightly to 3.5 percent in October from 3.6 percent in September. The state’s jobless rate was 4.3 percent one year ago.
“Iowa’s economy continues to improve” said Beth Townsend, Director of Iowa Workforce Development. “Total nonfarm employment added jobs for the second consecutive month, and the number of unemployed Iowans continued to trend down. The state’s unemployment rate for October now rests at 3.5 percent and is evidence of the strength of Iowa’s economy.”
The total number of working Iowans increased to 1,644,500 in October, 4,000 higher than September and 5,000 higher than one year ago.
For the second straight month, total nonfarm employment added jobs and now sits at 1,577,300 jobs. Government advanced this month due to larger-than-expected seasonal hiring in local government education and is little changed versus one year ago (-100).
Professional and business services surged ahead in October thanks primarily to hiring in administrative and waste management. This is the third consecutive month of growth for this sector which has added 4,500 jobs since July. Alternatively, losses this month were small, but evident in most sectors this month; the exceptions were leisure and hospitality (-1,900) and manufacturing (-1,000).
Nonfarm employment remains up 22,300 jobs (+1.4 percent). Professional and business services has now added the most jobs since last October (+6,500) followed by education and health services (+5,800) then construction (+3,700) and other services (+3,700).