St. Paul, MN – Minnesota lost 8,300 jobs in January according to a report released Thursday by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
The private sector lost 5,600 jobs while government units lost 2,700 jobs. Minnesota’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate held steady at 4 percent from December 2016. The labor force participation rate also remained steady at 69.3 percent.
Seven out of eleven major industry sectors lost during January. Trade, Transportation, and Utilities lost the most at 4,100; followed by Professional and Business Services at 3,200; and Government at 2,700; and 1,600 from Manufacturing.
Leisure and Hospitality added 3,300 jobs and the Other Services category added 1,500. Mining and Logging; Financial Activities; and Information all saw little to no changes in job totals.
“Trends point to solid growth in the state labor market and suggest that January’s figures may have been a temporary correction,” DEED Commissioner Shawntera Hardy said in a prepared statement. “Over the past year, 10 of the state’s 11 major industrial sectors have gained jobs.”
In the past year the state added 35,136 jobs in total. This 1.2 percent growth rate is slightly below the 1.5 percent national rate. Manufacturing was the only sector to lose jobs, losing 1,811 over the past year. Education and Health Services added 13,247, the most of any sectors.
Of the five metropolitan regions in Minnesota, only Mankato failed to see growth in the past year, seeing a 0.3 percent loss in employment. St. Cloud and Minneapolis-St. Paul saw growth over one percent. MSP added 27,617 jobs in the past year, 78.6 percent of all job gains in the state over that period.
