Iowa’s Workforce Development office reports the jobless figure at four-point-one percent, up just a tenth of a percent from both last month and the figure one year ago. Labor analyst Ann Wagner in the state’s Workforce Development office says the numbers have changed very little for almost two years now. She says we’re still trying to recover from the recession officially recognized in march 2001, though we haven’t achieved a broad-based economic recovery yet. It wouldn’t take much to give us a push in the right direction, according to the labor-market analyst. Wagner says to put us into recovery, businesses would need to invest and she thinks the new federal tax-cut package could help, though it’d take time. Wagner points out the tax cuts won’t begin to go into effect till July so they won’t immediately boost any recovery in the job market. National numbers in the last couple of weeks show some improvement, she says, so it may filter down to the states and spark more hiring in Iowa.
