(Radio 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. 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. “We also saw a number of people drop out of the workforce — about 6700 people between October and November. That was mostly due to retirements and students who willingly left the workforce,” Townsend says. “While we don’t like to see a reduction in our labor force, that number’s not overly concerning at this point.”

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. “Before the pandemic, we were at about almost 69% labor particiption rate and we’ve been over 68% for 2023,” Townsend says, “so we’re inching up and moving closer to pre-pandemic labor rate participation numbers.” There were about 100 layoffs in Iowa’s manufacturing sector in November, but Townsend says 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. “The good weather has certainly helped us out in that,” Townsend says, “and the hiring was primarily in commercial construction, so that was a good sign.” About a thousand jobs were added in the financial services sector in November. “Insurance and the financial industry are very key to the Iowa economy,” Townsend says, “and one of our bigger industries.” Townsend says 11-hundred people were hired in November to work in Iowa hospitals, nursing homes and other health care settings.

“Which is really good news for the health care industry because as you know they’ve had a difficult time hiring since the pandemic,” she says, “and they are up over 8500 jobs over the past 12 months.” 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.