Iowa sees rise in new unemployment claims, continuing claims remain steady

Iowa had an increase in new continuing claims in the week ending May 22, although continuing claims decreased, according to data on Iowa Workforce Development’s website.

New claims rose from 3,582 to 4,342, marking the first time the state had more than 4,000 new claims since the week ending April 17.

Continuing claims slipped from 26,173 to 26,125. It was the seventh time in the past eight weeks that continuing claims decreased.

Last week’s claims were a fraction of the numbers at this time in 2020. In the week ending May 23, 2020, Iowa reported 13,653 new claims and 178,559 continuing claims.

Construction was the largest source of new claims last week with 769, followed by self-employed and independent contractors with 548, manufacturing with 481 and accommodation and food services with 318.

IWD is no longer releasing additional information each week about how much it paid in unemployment benefits the previous week or what percentage of new claims are COVID-19-related, according to a message on its website.

The agency will stop issuing federal unemployment benefits June 12, Gov. Kim Reynolds said earlier in May.

These numbers are preliminary and are yet to be adjusted by the U.S. Department of Labor. They also only include people actively seeking work and therefore do not necessarily give a complete picture of how many people are out of work.

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