Almost all of the Raccoon Valley Radio primary coverage area are under two-percent unemployment for the month of October.

According to Iowa Workforce Development, Dallas County fell from 2.2-percent in September to 1.7-percent in October. Greene County dropped 0.5-percent from September to October to 1.8-percent. Guthrie County also saw a major drop in those without a job from September of 2.9-percent to 2.2-percent in October. Each county is at their lowest unemployment rate for the 2017 calendar year.

Iowa’s unemployment rate is three-percent for October, which according to Iowa Workforce Development, is the lowest since January of 2001. While Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds acknowledges the low percentage, she says there’s still work that has to be done to continue to grow the state’s economy at the capacity she wants to see it.

“It starts not only with upscaling our existing workforce, but we need to figure out a way to bring new people to Iowa and to keep our young people in our state. So we’ve sort of turned the corner on that. I think the more we do with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) and some of our programs that we have in middle high school and high school, it’s really a positive.”

The national unemployment rate also dropped slightly for October at 4.1-percent