Iowa’s unemployment rate for April remained at three-point-one percent.
Cory Kelly, a spokesman for Iowa Workforce Development, says there are very few hints as to what long-term trends may be in Iowa’s economy, but the state is CLOSE to “full employment.”
The agency reports about 52-thousand Iowans remain unemployed and the NUMBER of Iowans in the workforce declined last month. The construction industry was in a hiring boom a year ago and the data shows the construction sector shed about 15-hundred jobs last month.
Kelly’s agency reports “anemic” job growth in companies that make products and Iowa businesses, in general, seem to be “a little more apprehensive” about hiring.
Iowa governments, particularly at the local level, are cutting jobs, too, with 500 people who work in public sector losing their jobs. The state saw job gains in health care, education, financial services and in the leisure and hospitality industry.
