(Radio Iowa) – The unemployment numbers for March are out and Iowa Workforce Development executive director Beth Townsend says things are holding steady. “Pretty stable from last month it’s down a little bit from the revised February number of three-point-oh percent down to two-point-nine (2.9) in March, which is a good sign,” Townsend says. The workforce participation rate dropped slightly as well.

“You never want to see a decrease in your labor force participation rate right? We would love for that to get back to where it was pre-pandemic when it was closer to 70 percent,” she says. Townsend says there were four-thousand new jobs in March to go along with the 11-thousand jobs added in February. Townsend says they are starting to see increases in jobs in the typical areas that add employees as we head toward summer.

“You know, ramping up for the summer construction season, which is a good sign so you always want your construction and your manufacturing to be hiring or at least not laying off,” Townsend says. “…As you know, we’ve seen some layoffs, some pretty big layoffs coming in May in June with the Tyson plant closing and John Deere has got some layoffs going on. So it’s a good sign that we added those jobs in February and March.” Townsend says Iowa’s economy continues to be resilient.

“Despite the inflation worries that we’re seeing nationally and the changes in the national unemployment rate — nationally we only have about 62 percent of the labor force participation rate. So, we’re well insulated from what’s going on nationally and that’s a good sign,” Townsend says. The U-S unemployment rate fell in March to three-point-eight percent.