Iowa’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate up for October

Though Iowa’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate rose to 2.9 percent in October, the state’s labor force participation rate stayed at 67.7 percent.

More than 2,200 Iowans entered the labor force or still were looking for work, and employers added 4,500 jobs across a wide range of sectors, Iowa Workforce Development said in a news release Thursday.

The Iowa jobless rate had come in at 2.7 percent in September. It was 4.0 percent the year before.

“Strong hiring across the state, including in October, has helped Iowa regain a total of 170,700 jobs — overcoming the 169,800 jobs lost since the beginning of the pandemic,” Beth Townsend, IWD director, said in the release.

The total of out-of-work Iowans climbed to 49,700 in October, but remains 16,600 lower than a year ago, the release said.

“There were 1,662,400 working Iowans in October — 900 fewer than September but 51,600 more than a year ago.

The national unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent in October, and the labor force participation rate dropped, to 62.2 percent.

A separate survey of employers reported that Iowa businesses added 4,500 jobs in October, the IWD said.

That increase boosted total nonfarm employment to 1.58 million jobs — some 900 above the same figure from March 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That October bump largely was due to hiring in private service industries, in particular leisure and hospitality and health services, the release said.

Goods-producing industries experienced slight increases in manufacturing and construction. Government employment moved down in October, for the second month in a row, by 200.