Iowa’s unemployment rate went up in November, while at the same time there was a record number of Iowans working. Ann Wagner, a labor market analyst for the state’s Workforce Development agency, says the unemployment rate went up because over 15-thousand workers entered the labor force. She calls that a “large influx” and it helped Iowa set a new record of workers — one-million-six-hundred-77 thousand workers.
The unemployment rate for November was four-point-eight percent, up from October’s rate of four-and-a-half percent. Despite that, Wagner says Iowa also set a record in November the number of Iowans who had a job. The total number of working Iowas in Iowa stood at one-million-five-hundred-86-thousand-nine-hundred in the month of November. That eclipsed the previous record set back in May of 2000 before the recession.
The number of payroll, or “non-farm” jobs in Iowa set a record in November, too. One-million-four-hundred-85-thousand-two-hundred Iowans were working in “non-farm” jobs in November, a record number that surpasses pre-recession figures. “It was a month in which we reached some milestones,” Wagner says. The U.S. unemployment rate held steady at five percent in November. A year ago in November, Iowa’s unemployment rate stood at five percent.