Hamilton County sees a slight increase in January unemployment.

The Iowa Workforce Development office Wednesday morning announced that the January unemployment rate for Hamilton County saw a slight increase to 2.8 percent. This is up from the December,2025 rate of 2.3 percent. There were 7,470 Hamilton County residents employed for January while 220 were unemployed. The unemployment rates for surrounding counties for January showed Boone County at 3.2 percent, Franklin County at 4.2 percent, Hardin County at 3.7 percent, Story County at 3.3 percent, Webster County at 3.9 percent and Wright County at an even 3 percent. Iowa’s unemployment rate for January stood at 3.4 percent. There were over 1.6 million Iowans on the job for the month with 59,100 unemployed for January. There were 6,400 jobs added for the month in the state.