Unemployment Rate Decreases in Minnesota

The recession is hearing good news in the state of Minnesota. The news is full of reports of job gains instead of job losses and citizens are more than ecstatic.

“Minnesota is slowly pulling out of the recession, gaining 53,600 jobs over the past two years,” said Mark Phillips, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. “Declining requests for new unemployment insurance claims, strength in the temp help sector and other positive data are hopeful signs that the recovery will continue.”

There is no better news then hearing a state is seeing a steady increase in job positions. The most job gain was seen in the government sector which showed a very large increase. This sector gave almost 7,000 jobs to the job market in Minnesota. Other areas that showed a huge increase in jobs were financial, business and education. This is all positive news in this struggling economy where most states are seeing a gloomy forecast of more job losses.

However, with the good also comes the bad. There were some areas in Minnesota that saw a major loss in job positions. “Job losses hit the trade, transportation and utilities sector (down 4,800), leisure and hospitality (down 3,800), manufacturing (down 3,700), education and health services (down 2,300), construction (down 1,900), and professional and business services (down 900).” Some areas like education are seeing an increase and a decrease, just depending on where the actual location of the job position is. Colleges and public schools are seeing different kinds of job issues within the economy.

The hospitality industry is also seeing a major job loss in Minnesota. However, this is pretty typical when the seasons end during the tourist months. Some areas like the manufacturing sector, were supposed to increase—according to some studies done earlier this year. However, it is showing no signs of improving right at the moment.

There are several factors that play into a state’s unemployment rate. Minnesota’s unemployment rate in September was at 6.9%. “The 6.9 percent rate was tabulated using new federal rules that skew results by factoring out seasonal and one-time changes such as the start of school, harvesting season and the impact of July’s state government shutdown.”

Keep in mind that some of these job losses that are being noted are simply because some sectors have slowed down. Some employment sectors did a major hiring spree, then the work slowed down and people had to be let go. The numbers are always fluctuating but it is nice to see such a low unemployment rate because not a lot of states are seeing these kinds of increases.” So far the year of 2011 is looking good for the unemployed in Minnesota. “Temp jobs rose 9.7 percent for the year and gained about 600 workers in September.”