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Guest Thinkers — February 16, 2011

Unemployment in Iowa

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[Cross-posted at the Iowa 1to1 Network]

As the following chart illustrates, more Iowa workers were employed in May 2008 than in any other month in the past two years. Since then, Iowa has lost 65,700 jobs and gained 7,000, for an aggregate total of 58,700 jobs lost. The Construction and Manufacturing sectors represented about 20% of all of the jobs in Iowa in May 2008, but have represented nearly 60% of all the job losses since then. In other words, those two sectors are hemorrhaging jobs at a rate of about 3 times their representation in the state economy. Most other sectors’ losses have been roughly proportionate to their representation in the Iowa economy. Two sectors, Financial activities and insurance and Educational and health services, have actually seen employment gains since May 2008.

What implications do these data have for us as educational organizations?

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