Unemployment Remains Steady As Candidates Eye White House

Iowa Workforce Development

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Driving around town, a person might wonder what impact the recession had on our area, and how it impacted employment opportunities in our area. A simple drive down A Avenue reveals the occasional help wanted sign propped up in windows, some are at the local fast food establishments, while others search for ‘manager’ positions within their fast growing company.

The State of Iowa has seen its unemployment rate continue to hold steady at 5.1% for May, versus the national average of 8.2% for the same time period.

Iowa’s unemployment rate hit its highest point back in February of 2009 holding mostly steady until dropping to 5.9% in March of 2011. “The Iowa economy remains on track for modest growth in the coming months,” said Teresa Wahlert, director of Iowa Workforce Development. “Continued improvement, particularly in housing, will strengthen job growth in a broad range of industries.”

Nationally, the unemployment rate remains at 8.2% for the third month in a row. In all, about 80,000 jobs were created the last month, and fall short of what is needed to keep up with population growth.

The numbers are far better than what was seen at the end of 2008 to January of 2009, when the American economy was shedding just over 700,000 jobs per month at the height of the recession, and by October of 2009 when unemployment had climbed to 10%.

But not all is rosey for President Obama, especially so near the election. Those once slowly dropping unemployment numbers are holding steady and, if history proves true, no president has managed to win re-election with an unemployment rate of 7.2% or higher.

Oskaloosa residents let their feelings about the current state of the economy and unemployment be heard on our Facebook page. “Yes, there are SOME jobs out there. We can’t drive through Osky or Ottumwa without finding help wanted signs everywhere, it’s just not the kind of jobs that people want to do. If they really wanted to work, they could,” says Amanda Van Zante.

National statistics confirm that the U6 unemployment rate continues to be a problem. The U6 is described as, “Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part-time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.”

This past month, that number was 14.9%, and is considered by many to be the ‘real’ unemployment number. Back in June of 2011, this number was at 16.4%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines the U6 number as follows, “Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work. Persons employed part-time for economic reasons are those who want and are available for full-time work but have had to settle for a part-time schedule.”

Some more comments from Facebook include the following:

• Ross Nilson said, “The longer the Federal Government provides a crutch, the longer the recovery is going to take. I’ve been looking for engineers for 6 months with little to no luck.”
• William Smead commented, ‎”Yes. It is popular to blame the president and not take responsibility, no?”
• Vicki West added, “There are alot of jobs out there! What’s the problem?”
• Josh Bethune commented, “Hardly any jobs and the ones that are open…they are nit picky about who they hire. They don’t give a fair chance to everyone.”

Now it’s  your turn to decide. Will the employment rate have any impact upon how you vote in the upcoming presidential election?

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