Unemployment rate goes up with students looking for jobs

Iowa’s unemployment rate went up in May, to four-point-eight percent. The jobless rate was three-tenths of a percent less in April. Terry Taylor of the Iowa Workforce Development agency says some of the increase is due to students trying to get a job. “High school students are getting out of school and college students are entering the labor force,” Taylor says. There was also a decrease in jobs in the construction industry. “That primarily has to do with the fact that we did have a lot of rain in the month of May,” Taylor says. “In particular, the week of the 12th we had about five inches of rain…so employment went down in construction.” There was also a decrease of about 500 jobs in professional and business services.The layoffs were due to the end of tax season, according to Taylor. There were over 78-thousand unemployed people in Iowa in May according to this latest state report, nearly five-thousand more than in April. The nation’s over-all unemployment rate is slightly higher than Iowa’s — at five-point-one percent for May.