Minnesota employers added 6,600 jobs in June, according to seasonally adjusted figures released today by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
In addition, the agency said May’s employment figures were revised from 10,200 jobs gained to 10,700 jobs gained. Over the past year, Minnesota employers have added 45,517 jobs, a growth rate of 1.5%. The U.S. growth rate during that period was 1.7%.
Minnesota now has a seasonally adjusted total of 2,962,300 jobs statewide, the most in state history.
The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate held steady at 3.1% in June. The U.S. unemployment rate was 4%.
“Minnesota gained 17,300 jobs over the past two months, the state’s strongest growth spurt in more than a year,” said DEED Commissioner Shawntera Hardy. “Overall employment in the state is at a record level and continuing to grow, however, we must continue to invest in communities where job growth is not as strong.”
Leisure and hospitality led all sectors with 2,700 new jobs last month, followed by manufacturing (up 2,000), construction (up 1,500), information (up 900), professional and business services (up 900), trade, transportation and utilities (up 600) and other services (up 200). Logging and mining held steady.
Three sectors lost jobs: government (down 1,000), education and health services (down 600) and financial activities (down 600).
Leisure and hospitality also added the most jobs over the past year with a gain of 13,728. Other industries adding jobs in the past 12 months were manufacturing (up 8,661), professional and business services (up 5,434), education and health services (up 5,143), trade, transportation and utilities (up 5,035), construction (up 4,744), government (up 4,137) and information (up 508).
Other services (down 1,399), financial activities (down 386) and logging and mining (down 88) lost jobs over the past year.
In the Metropolitan Statistical Areas, all five regions gained jobs over the past 12 months: Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA (up 2%), Duluth-Superior MSA (up 1.5%), Rochester MSA (up 0.2%), St. Cloud MSA (up 1.6%) and Mankato MSA (up 4.5%).
DEED has added a section to its website that examines the unemployment rate by demographics (race, age and gender) and looks at alternative measures of unemployment. Minnesota’s black unemployment rate fell from 6.1% in May to 5.6% in June for yet another all-time low dating back to 2000. Minnesota’s Hispanic unemployment rate increased from 4.4% in May to 5.3% in June.
Due to relatively small sample sizes, the calculated unemployment rates for black and Hispanic populations in Minnesota are more susceptible to random measurement error.
DEED is the state’s principal economic development agency, promoting business recruitment, expansion and retention, workforce development, international trade and community development. For more details about the agency and its services, visit the DEED website mn.gov/deed/ or follow DEED on Twitter.