Iowa may have turned the corner in recovering from the employment slump that resulted from last year’s national recession. Labor analyst Ann Wagner with Iowa Workforce Development says figures just in for the month past show a welcome drop in Iowa’s jobless rate. Last month we had a spike of four-percent, but for August the rate’s fallen to three-point-seven percent and the total number of unemployed workers fell from 65,200 to 60,500 in August. The level of employment, at one-million-565-thousand, is back to the record we’d set in May and nonfarm employment is at its highest level this year. Wagner says the state added new jobs in services, retail trade, construction and finance. She says manufacturing is still the “soft spot” and recovery won’t be complete till there’s hiring in that area. Iowa’s 3-point-7-percent jobless rate compares with a national rate of five-point-seen percent, a five-month low for the U-S jobless rate.
