DES MOINES, Iowa - Weekly jobless claims in Iowa are down across the board...
First time claims are down by a big margin, while ongoing claims also fell.
Ongoing claims tend to track with the state's actual unemployment rate, which is currently the seventh lowest in the county - 3.8 percent.
By the numbers, first time weekly jobless claims fell by 644 , from 3,380 to 2,736, reflecting a drop of 19 percent. First time claims were up 18 percent in the previous week, and 20 percent the week before.
First time claims can wobble by seemingly wide margins from week to week without greatly impacting overall longer range numbers.
Ongoing claims for the most recent week feel by 107rom 25,588 to 25,481, reflecting a small drop of less than 1 percent from the previous week.
Ongoing claims reached a peak in the early stages of the pandemic of more than 191,000 in late May of 2020.