Minnesota jobless rate holds at 4 percent; job growth lags U.S.
The state's jobless rate held steady at 4 percent in August, although job growth over the year continues to lag the nation, officials said Thursday.
Seasonally adjusted figures show Minnesota employers added 7,300 jobs in August. Officials also revised July data up by 2,800 jobs. Combined, it brought job gains up to 38,037 in the past year, the Department of Employment and Economic Development said in a statement.
While Minnesota's unemployment rate remains better than the 5.1 percent national jobless rate, the state's job growth remains significantly below the U.S. rate. Jobs in Minnesota have grown 1.3 percent since August 2014, compared with a 2.1 percent growth rate nationally during that period, the agency said.
DEED Commissioner Katie Clark Sieben called Minnesota's August data healthy, noting that private employers added more than 12,000 jobs during the month.
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Job gains in professional and business services and leisure and hospitality helped produce a net gain of 7,300 jobs, but other sectors suffered.
"On the downside, the glaring weakness was in government," said state labor economist Steve Hine. "We lost 5,000 jobs there in August, while manufacturing shed 1,000."
Job gains over the past year have come largely in education and health, professional and business services.
Rochester is the only Minnesota metro area to lose jobs on an annual basis, according to the agency.
Here are the August job tallies from DEED:
• Professional and business services and the leisure and hospitality sector each added 4,600 jobs in August. Other industries that gained jobs were education and health services (up 2,900), financial activities (up 1,600), logging and mining (up 200) and information (up 200).
• Government lost 5,000 jobs in August, followed by manufacturing (down 1,000), other services (down 400), construction (down 200), and trade, transportation and utilities (down 200).
• Over the past year, education and health services led all sectors with 15,721 new jobs. Other sectors that added jobs during that period were professional and business services (up 10,817), leisure and hospitality (up 7,871), trade, transportation and utilities (up 5,098) and financial activities (up 3,590).
• The following sectors lost jobs in the past year: government (down 1,985), other services (down 1,087), manufacturing (down 583), construction (down 525), logging and mining (down 466), and information (down 414).