Iowa’s unemployment rate dropped again in April. “We saw a two-tenths of a percent drop, taking us down to 4.7 percent in April,” according to Kerri Koonce of Iowa Workforce Development.

“Which is significantly below the 5.2 that we were at last year, and again still well below the national rate which was at 7.5 percent.” Koonce says the unemployment rate has not been this low since the recession began.

“It’s been since December of 2008 since we have been this low. So, it’s very good to see us at this level,” Koonce says. “We are also within 10,000 jobs of being back to where our high was prior to the recession as well. So, that’s very good for out state.” Manufacturing had the biggest job losses once the recession started, and while that area is coming back, Koonce says other sectors are leading the way.

“The larger portion of the job growth seems to be coming in some of the other industries. For example, financial activities this month is at an all-time high. It’s never been at 104,300 jobs, so it is significantly above where it was pre recession,” Koonce says. “Education and health services are approaching all-time highs…So, we’re seeing a lot of job growth in some of those sectors.”

Koonce says there looks to be more job expansion as the construction industry gets back into full action. “I know construction is a little low, but part of that is because we had such a rainy spring that made construction hard to get started,” Koonce says.

The estimate of unemployed persons dropped to 77,800 in April from 80,500 in March. The number of unemployed stood at 86,200 one year ago.

Picketers are marching around construction sites in Iowa’s second-largest city, which is still recovering from the devastating flood of 2008. On Tuesday, a carpenter’s union in Cedar Rapids voted down a wage offer from general contractors after the contract expired last week.

Michael Glavan, of Kleiman Construction, says flood projects brought in more contractors who don’t hire union labor and often pay less per hour.

“We go to bid a job and there’s ten people bidding it, there’s two union bidders,” Glavan says. “If our wages and package are above those folks, how are we going to be competitive and get future work for these people?” Local 308 representative Dave Hogan says the union voted down the contractor’s proposal by a four-to-one ratio.

“Nobody wins with a strike,” Hogan says. “Strike does nobody any good, but sometimes you just have to stand for what you believe in. In the work that’s gone on in Cedar Rapids since 2008, these very contractors have made hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah, there’s going to be a slowdown for a couple months, but it’ll come back. It always does.”

Hogan says the biggest reason the proposal was rejected is that the Iowa City union negotiated higher wages last year. “Those same carpenters are getting a $1.49 raise this year,” he says. “They offered our carpenters less than a dollar and these carpenters work back and forth on Interstate 380.”

General contractors who hire union workers say offering higher wages will make it difficult to make competitive bids for projects against non-union contractors. Two carpenters’ unions in the Quad Cities are also on strike.

The Midwestern economy faltered slightly during the past month but it’s still healthy and chugging along, while Iowa’s economy is thriving, according to a survey. Creighton University questioned supply managers and business leaders across the nine-state region.

Creighton economist Ernie Goss says Iowa’s numbers were the highest in the Midwest, while the region as a whole experienced a minor slip. “The leading economic indicator from our April survey was down a bit but still very strong,” Goss says.

“That goes up against the March number which was a little stronger. This is pointing to pretty solid growth in the next three to six months.” Iowa’s jobless picture continues to improve, according to the survey. Compared to pre-recession levels, Goss says Iowa is now down only one-half of one-percentage point in terms of employment.

“The employment number is looking very good,” Goss says. “Companies are continuing to hire, especially durable goods manufacturing and anything connected to agriculture and housing.” The automatic, across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration got plenty of attention earlier this year, but Goss says it’s caused very little harm to businesses in the Midwest.

Goss says, “We asked the supply managers the last two months, in fact, three-fourths of them say no impact, 25% say modest impacts, while none — that’s zero companies — in our entire survey, that’s remarkable, say there were significant impacts.”

It marks the fourth straight month where Iowa’s overall economic numbers have improved. Goss says both durable and nondurable goods manufacturers in Iowa report very healthy business activity with job gains.