Washington County’s unemployment rate increased by nearly two percentage points from December to January while the rate also increased in all of its contiguous counties.

According to Iowa Workforce Development, Washington County had 4.5% unemployment in January, compared to 2.7% in December and 3.7% in January of 2020. Louisa and Keokuk counties both had 5%, Jefferson had 4.4%, Henry had 4.3%, Iowa had 4.2%, and Johnson had 3.8% in January. All of those counties’ percentages are higher than January of 2020. Statewide, the unemployment rate was at 3.5%, higher than 3.1% in December. Nationally, unemployment decreased from 6.7% in December to 6.3% in January. The number of unemployed Iowans in January was 57,400.