Iowa’s unemployment rate for August dropped to 6%. That is continuing a decline from April amid an economic slowdown caused by the coronavirus outbreak.
Today, Iowa Workforce Development says that the August rate was down from 6.8% in July and 11% in April. There were more than 96 thousand people listed as unemployed in August, and this is a decline. There were more than 110 thousand in July. Iowa’s unemployment ranked 12th nationally.
Iowa has reported more than 11 hundred new confirmed coronavirus cases and 15 new deaths in the past 24 hours, as a federal report says the state has one of the nation’s highest infection rates. The state Coronavirus website says there are more than 78 thousand confirmed cases of coronavirus, an increase of 1,259 since 10 a.m. yesterday.
Iowa can attribute almost 13 hundred deaths to COVID-19 since March.
Woodbury County has 116 new cases of COVID-19 and one recent death. There has been a total of 4,802 cases and 60 deaths, and the county has a 14.7% positivity rate.
Positivity rates are significant in Iowa. Gov. Kim Reynolds has ordered that at least 50% of instruction at Iowa schools must be in-person unless the county where the schools are located have a 14-day coronavirus average of at least 15% and a 10% absentee rate.
Most of the Iowa counties with 14-day averages above 15% are located in northwest Iowa.
They include Sioux, Lyon, Crawford, Osceola, Carroll, Plymouth, and Winnebago Counties. The other county with a high positivity rate is Henry County in southeast Iowa.
