(Radio Iowa) – State officials say the latest report shows the closure of Tyson’s pork processing plant in Perry has had little effect on the state’s overall unemployment rate. Iowa’s unemployment rate was 2.8% in July, unchanged for the fourth consecutive month. Jesse Dougherty, a spokesman for Iowa Workforce Development, said less than half of the nearly 1400 workers who lost their jobs when the Tyson plant closed in June applied for jobless benefits in July. “We do know that there was around 200 that transferred to other Tyson plants. Some workers took time off. Some returned to their home country and have plans to return back to the area. Others we do know have found some jobs in similar fields,” Dougherty said. “We can’t tell exactly what that number is yet.”

Tyson was the largest employer in Perry. Tyson cited financial struggles within the pork industry as the main reason for closing the plant. The state set up a transition center at the plant to help the Tyson workers find another job and Dougherty said his agency is still evaluating data about how many are now employed elsewhere. “We don’t have quite the full picture of that yet,” Dougherty said. “…Layoffs are always a difficult situation, but because this was announced in March, we do think we were able to lessen some of that impact.”

About half the employees lived in Perry and the rest commuted to the work at the plant and Dougherty said that’s perhaps another factor in the lower than expected number of unemployment claims. “And I do think Perry does benefit from the fact that you’re also in between the Des Moines metro and Ames,” he said. “That has also helped a little bit.”

Today’s report shows there were about a thousand more Iowans receiving unemployment benefits in July compared to June. Dougherty said the unemployment rate stayed steady because jobs were added in some sectors of the economy. “We actually did have some smaller gains in non-durable goods factories. They were a lot smaller than the losses in Tyson, but they did offset that a little bit,” Dougherty said, “and we also had some gains in education and health care and then also leisure and hospitality.”

The sector that includes leisure, hospitality, entertainment and recreation businesses in Iowa added about 500 jobs in July. “Even though that has been hard hit across the country, it is a good indicator of spending,” Dougherty said. The education and health care sectors are lumped together in the monthly report and added 700 jobs. “Nursing and residential care facilities — that was most of the 700,” Dougherty said.

The total number of Iowans in the workforce has dropped in the past year, however. There were over 21,000 fewer Iowans working last month compared to July of 2023. The number of construction jobs in Iowa has declined by over 3000 since March and in July alone Iowa’s manufacturing sector shed 800 jobs.