DES MOINES, IOWA – Iowa’s Labor Force Participation Rate rose to 67.0 percent in January, up from the 66.4 percent first announced for December, after growth and an annual revision of labor statistics added 31,000 people to the official estimate of Iowa’s workforce.
Even after the revision, January’s Labor Force Participation increased slightly from the revised December rate of 66.9 percent. Meanwhile, Iowa’s unemployment rate in January held steady with the revised December rate of 3.3 percent, while the U.S. unemployment rate decreased to 4.0 percent.
The total number of unemployed Iowans increased to 56,500, up 200 from revised December data. Meanwhile, the number of working Iowans rose by 2,700 to 1,664,100. The largest increases in the labor force came among women aged 45-54 and women 20-24.
“January’s report showed a large number of people entering Iowa’s labor force and immediately finding work,” said Beth Townsend, Executive Director of Iowa Workforce Development. “Despite recent layoffs in some industries, Iowa grew jobs in January, for the third month in a row, and absorbed more than 2,000 people who came back to the workforce in search of a new career. Growing labor force participation is a welcome improvement to see early in 2025; with more than 50,000 open jobs, we know employers need even more Iowans to return to the workforce.”
The last five years of monthly labor force data (2020-2024) recently were revised as required by the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. This “benchmarking” is the periodic process of re-estimating statistics as more complete data becomes available, such as updated data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Prior-year estimates for the Current Employment Statistics (CES) and Local Area Unemployment Statistics (LAUS) programs – key statistical measures of employment – are benchmarked annually. Revised data are incorporated in January employment statistics when they are released each March.
