St. Paul, MN – Minnesota employers added 7,200 jobs in September, according to seasonally adjusted figures released today by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
The September gains, combined with August figures that were revised upward by 2,700 jobs, bring calendar year gains to a seasonally adjusted 23,000 jobs statewide. Since hitting the recessionary low point five years ago in September, Minnesota has added 212,800 jobs.
The Minnesota unemployment rate fell 0.2 percent in September to 4.1 percent, the state’s lowest jobless rate in eight years. The U.S. unemployment rate in September was 5.9 percent. Another measure, requests for unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, continues to drop, with monthly claims for benefits reaching 14-year lows.
“Minnesota is moving in the right direction,” said State Representative Will Morgan (DFL – Burnsville) in reaction to today’s strong jobs report. “All the tools are in place to make our economy even stronger in the months and years ahead. We have one of the most well-educated workforces in the nation. Thanks to free all-day kindergarten and more funding for our schools, our workforce will get even better. We have one of the highest numbers of Fortune 500 companies per capita in the nation. Thanks to new income and property tax cuts for the middle class, consumers have more money in their pockets to spend at businesses. I think our future is very bright.”
Professional and business services led all sectors in September with 4,100 job gains. Other sectors that added jobs were leisure and hospitality (up 3,900), other services (up 1,300), education and health services (up 1,100), manufacturing (up 1,100), trade, transportation and utilities (up 300) and construction (up 200). Information held steady for the month.
Sectors with job losses were government (down 4,200), financial activities (down 400) and mining and logging (down 200).
Over the past year, professional and business services led all sectors with 11,161 new jobs, followed by manufacturing (up 10,376), education and health services (up 8,022), construction (up 6,996), leisure and hospitality (up 4,901), government (up 2,347), trade, transportation and utilities (up 1,007), information (up 851), other services (up 678), and logging and mining (up 541).
Financial activities lost 1,752 jobs over the past 12 months.
In the Metropolitan Statistical Areas, the following regions gained jobs in the past 12 months: Mankato MSA (up 3.4 percent), St. Cloud MSA (up 2 percent), Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA (up 1.7 percent), Rochester MSA (up 1.3 percent) and Duluth-Superior MSA (up 1 percent).