Weekly Economic Trends and Indicators

The Headlines:

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) recently reported that nonfarm payroll employment in the Davenport-Moline-Rock Island, IA-IL metropolitan area increased by 1,700 in January to 184,800 from a revised 183,100 in December on a seasonally adjusted basis. Before seasonal adjustment, nonfarm payroll employment in the Quad Cities was 500 lower than in January 2025. This release incorporated revisions to metro area employment data from 2025 and earlier.

The Details:

As was the case with national data for 2025, the metro area revisions to employment data were significant. However, while the national data was revised downward for most months, Quad Cities employment numbers were revised upward. In fact, there were also significant revisions to data from late 2024 that were also positive. There was still a slowdown in early 2024, but the year ended on a better note than was originally thought. Month-to-month employment changes during 2025 were revised slightly, but because the year started at a better level than the early data indicated, we also finished the year in a better position.

Even so, January employment was down compared to last year before seasonal adjustment. Compared to a year ago, there have been job losses in manufacturing (-4.3%), trade, transportation, and utilities (-0.2%), information (-6.7%), leisure and hospitality (-3.4%), and government (-1.6%). There have been job gains in mining, logging, and construction (+4.1%), financial activities (+1.4%), professional and business services (+1.5%), and private education and health services (+3.3%).

The Context:

Job posting data from Lightcast, a labor market analytics company, corroborates the latest BLS data. Health care continues to be one of the strongest areas of the labor market locally. In the first quarter, 4 of the top 10 occupations and 5 of the top 10 job titles in Lightcast’s job posting data for the Quad Cities were in the health care sector.

Also well-represented in the job posting data last quarter were jobs in transportation and warehousing. As noted above, jobs in trade, transportation, and utilities were down compared to a year ago, but they are still up compared to two years ago. While things have slowed slightly, those jobs are close to their highest levels in a decade. Other sectors of the local labor market appear to be following national trends. Financial jobs are up due to the strength of the banking sector and interest rate cuts last year. Jobs related to information technology may be starting to be negatively affected by adoption of AI. Finally, manufacturing employment was also down both locally and nationally.

Overall, the local job market is doing better than initial estimates suggested, but gains and losses still vary greatly across different industries.

Next week: Inflation update