The state unemployment rate rose one-tenth of a percent to 3.5% in April. Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend says that’s partly because more people are looking for work.
“We had 5,000 Iowans come back into the workforce, that’s a really good sign. Yeah, the unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point, but I would take that every day if I could get 5,000 more people coming into the workforce each month,” Townsend says.
Townsend says manufacturing continues to be a down area. “We’ve lost 7,400 jobs over the last 12 months,” she says. “So, all of 2024, we continue to see a decline in manufacturing jobs in Iowa as a result of the bad shape the economy was in 2024, so it’s going to take some time to recover from that. ”
Townsend says there’s no clear evidence yet on the impact of tariffs on the job market. ” I think the tariffs went into effect sometime in the last couple of weeks of April, which was probably too short a time to say whether that’s going to have a negative or positive impact,” she says. Townsend says the private service industries were responsible for most of the job gains in April, adding about 41,000 new jobs. “We saw good producing secret sectors, added 800 jobs. Professional and business services are the ones that gained the most, and that’s professional, scientific, and technical services,” she says, “and includes administrative support and waste management. Construction gained 13,000 jobs last month. That’s the third month we’ve seen an increase and they’re up 2,800 jobs since the beginning of the year. ”
Townsend says adding more people to the workforce will help the economy continue to grow. “If we could add 5,000 new Iowans in the workforce, you know 5,000 over the next six months, that would be, you know, 30,000 people. That would get us closer to our pre pandemic numbers,” Townsend says.
The U.S. unemployment rate remained at four-point-two percent in April.