Iowa’s unemployment rate remains unchanged

Iowa’s employment experts have compiled the jobless statistics for the end of summer 2001. Unemployment remained unchanged in August at 3.1%, up from a year ago when it was 2.6%. The August rate translates to 49-thousand-300 unemployed persons, and that’s up 9000 from August 2000. While the jobless rate is seasonally adjusted to allow for normal fluctuations in the job market, Wagner says there were some changes in different parts of the market.All industries were up except finance, insurance and real estate. And for the year, government and manufacturing were the areas that were down. Wagner confirms that slowdowns in Iowa’s heavy industry like ag-equipment manufacturers are to blame for some of the decreases, and so are state budget cutbacks.Seeing a downturn in government jobs and in manufacturing there’s a slowdown with lots of layoffs there. The state jobless rate in August was three-point-one percent, unchanged from the previous month.