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Legislative News and Views - Rep. David Bly (DFL)

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Breaking news: Employers added over 7,000 new jobs in September, unemployment rate lowest in 8 years

Thursday, October 16, 2014

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.

“We are moving in the direction of an economy that works for everyone,” said State Representative David Bly (DFL – Northfield) when asked about the significance of September’s strong jobs report. “The health of our democracy depends on a thriving, robust middle class. Over the past two years, we’ve enacted policies that move us closer to where we need to go, such as investing in education, raising the minimum wage, advancing equal pay for equal work, making our tax system more progressive, expanding access to affordable health care and putting a down payment on long overdue improvements to our roads and bridges. As we look to the future, we need to focus on ideas and policies that continue growing the middle class and help more people achieve the American Dream.”

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).