An Iowa economist affiliated with a liberal think-tank says the 25-hundred jobs lost in Iowa in December shows “continued instability” in the Iowa economy.Peter Fisher, research director of the Iowa Policy Project, says the nation’s unemployment rate dropped, while Iowa’s went up. He says the signs of the past couple of months “are not that good” and it looks like Iowa is “stuttering” on the way to recovery.Fisher says despite the slowness of the recovery, there have been some areas of the economy where there’s been job growth. Fisher says the problem is the growth has been in low-wage jobs, and the declines have been in high-wage jobs. Fisher says the industries that have gained jobs in Iowa pay annual salaries that are about six-thousand dollars less, on average, than the industries losing jobs. The Iowa Policy Project is based in Mount Vernon.