Iowa’s unemployment rate fell to 3.7% in January, the state’s lowest rate since the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered Iowa businesses in March 2020.
Beth Townsend, director of Iowa Workforce Development (IWD), said Iowa’s economic recovery from the pandemic is “continuing to press forward.” The state’s unemployment rate has decreased slowly over the past year, but remains elevated above pre-pandemic levels.
Workforce concerns have been a driving force in Iowa politics over recent months. Iowa lawmakers areconsidering changes to the state’s unemployment system, including offering fewer weeks of benefits and lowering the wage threshold for a “suitable” job. And Gov. Kim Reynolds and IWD already launched the Reemployment Case Management program, which requires unemployed Iowans to meet regularly with a state-appointed career adviser.
“Since January, more than 640 Iowans involved in our Reemployment Case Management program have found new jobs,” Townsend said in Monday’s news release. “We will work as hard as possible to keep that number growing.”
According to Jesse Dougherty, a spokesperson for IWD, over 2,000 Iowans had one-on-one meetings from the program’s Jan. 9 launch to early March.
Unemployment, labor force participation still lag
Iowa’s unemployment rate peaked in April 2020, when 10.5% of the state’s workforce was unemployed amid COVID-19 closures. The unemployment rate fell dramatically over the summer, leveling out around 4.5% in the fall of 2020.
Since then, the unemployment rate has decreased slowly, dropping just a fraction of a percentage point each month. January’s 3.7% unemployment rate is the lowest in Iowa since before the pandemic.
But the rate is still significantly elevated from pre-COVID levels, when Iowa had about 2.6% unemployment.
The unemployment rate is just one measure of the state’s economic health. IWD also tracks the labor force participation rate – the number of working-age Iowans who are either employed or seeking employment. A decrease in this number reflects people ending their job search and leaving the workforce entirely.
The workforce participation rate in January 2022 was 66.8%. It held relatively steady through 2021, ranging from 66.5% to 67.2%.
The workforce participation rate was 70% in January 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the U.S. The participation rate dropped in the first months of the pandemic, hitting a low in August 2020 of 65.9%.
There were 67,000 fewer Iowans in the workforce in January 2022 than there were in January 2020, according to Iowa Workforce Development data.
Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com. Follow Iowa Capital Dispatch on Facebook and Twitter.
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