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.
“I am very pleased to see that Minnesota’s employers are hiring,” said State Representative Peter Fischer (DFL – Maplewood) in reaction to September’s strong jobs report. “Businesses need a talented workforce and Minnesota is where they can find it thanks to our historical commitment to education. We are seeing confidence from employers because of our state’s competitive business climate. We’ve got a lot of pieces in place to build on our progress in the months and years ahead, such as the first minimum wage increase in nearly a decade, free all-day kindergarten for every child, bigger property tax refunds for homeowners and renters and a two-year college tuition freeze. I think those are common sense steps that are helping to create more jobs with better pay, which is what we need to keep working towards.”
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).