(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend says the March unemployment rate increased by one-tenth of a percent to three-point-four percent.  “Which is consistent with what we saw on the national level, because it also went up basically a tenth of a point in March as well. The good news was we had 17-hundred new folks in our workforce,” she says. Townsend says the additional workers kept the workforce participation rate the same in March. The construction, education and health services, trade, transportation and utilities areas added 15-hundred jobs. Townsend says Iowa firms lost 15-hundred jobs in March, mostly in private service industries.

“The temporary agencies probably, you know, that loss is an indication that there’s not as great a need. Employers are not in a crisis mode anymore in terms of finding help, probably not a need for short term surging with employers, you know, they have sufficient staff already,” Townsend says. Townsend says the turnover in the job market has slowed. “You know overall the job market has been tightening the past few months and we know that a lot of the low-skilled jobs that you would normally see a lot of turnover those jobs are no longer available meaning people are already in them and are not giving them up so we’re not seeing the churn that we were post pandemic,” she says. Townsend says things have continued to even out when it comes to job loses and additions.

“So even though we’ve lost around eight-thousand manufacturing jobs in the past 12 months, we’re seeing some increases in healthcare. So that’s a good sign. It’s gained 39-hundred jobs in the last six months in healthcare,” Townsend says. “So I think what we’re seeing, and I was very consistent with what we’re seeing around the country. There was a lot of uncertainty pending the outcome of the election.” Townsend says the new administration didn’t take over until mid January, so new policies have not yet started to impact the labor market. There have been several announcements of layoffs in manufacturing, but Townsend says the number of weeks of unemployment paid out is still around nine.

“If that number were going up and increasing pretty rapidly, that would mean that it’s taking longer to find the next job. And the fact that it’s remained relatively consistent at about nine weeks for the last, you know, almost probably since last July, we’ve been at the nine week point. That’s a good indication that we’re still able to help people get to the next job in the same amount of time as we were maybe when we had more jobs available last year,” Townsend says. Iowa allows a maximum of 16 weeks of unemployment. The U-S unemployment rate increased to four-point-two percent in March.