(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Workforce Development director Beth Townsend says the state unemployment rate increased again slightly in May as more people starting looking for a job. “More people are rejoining the workforce, which if they’re not employed when they rejoin, then that’s going to, you know, slightly increase your unemployment rate. But that’s fine. I will take a tenth of a point increase in unemployment rate to get 39-hundred Iowans back in the workforce any day of the week,” Townsend says. The unemployment rate was three-point- six percent in May. There have been continued layoffs in manufacturing, which is down 84-hundred jobs this year and in the professional and business service, and financial industries. Townsend says the Iowa economy is still doing well.

“We still have 18-thousand more workers in the workforce than we did a year ago, so that’s a positive sign. It’s also a good indication that even the folks that are getting laid off are finding new jobs,” she says. “Our average duration is up a little bit, it’s closer to ten weeks than nine weeks, but that’s still really low and it it’s a good indication that people can find that next job relatively quickly.” Townsend says those coming back into the job market recently have been women. “Primarily older women reentering the workforce. So you know, we saw a lot of women, older women leave the workforce during the pandemic to take care of children or parents as the case may be,” Townsend says. She says the labor market can handle people coming back to work, and those who have lost a job.

“We still have you know 49-thousand open jobs. So there’s jobs to be had for those who want to come back, so they’re encouraged to come back because there are jobs available. It would be a much worse situation if people were in the workforce, but we just didn’t have the jobs, you know, to give them,” she says. Townsend says Iowa has a labor participation rate that’s five points higher than the national rate, and also higher than some of the other states which have a lover unemployment rates.