Unemployment rates for January have finally been released.

According to Iowa Workforce Development, the percentage of people without a job in all three of our local counties increased in early 2016.  Dallas County saw a 0.6 percent increase to 3.1 percent in January, Greene County saw a 0.7 percent increase to 3.6 percent and Guthrie County’s unemployment rate went up 1.2 percent to 4.8 percent in January.

All three areas are doing better now than than the year before however.  In January of 2015, Dallas County’s unemployment rate was 3.6 percent, Greene’s was 4.2 percent and Guthrie’s was 5.4 percent.

Overall, Iowa’s unemployment rate went up 0.8 percent during the first month of the year to 4.4 percent. The latest U.S. unemployment rate was 4.9 percent.