Minnesota Adds Nearly 10,000 Jobs in November

(KNSI) – Minnesota companies worked overtime in November as they expanded payrolls by 9,500.

The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.1%, according to new data from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Weather may have played a role as a warm end to fall kept people working in the trade, transportation, and utilities industries. Those sectors were up 3,300 jobs. The survey was completed in the second week of November, which saw temperatures well above average for that time of the year.

Education and health service jumped by 2,700 last month with government and manufacturing each adding around 1,000 positions. It caps off a good stretch, where 17,300 positions were created in the course of three months. The rate of job gains in the state recently has been well above the national average. The average hourly wage outpaces the rest of the country, at $36.29 in Minnesota compared to about $33.

The labor force fell by 7,433 people, which brought the participation rate down by 0.2% to 68.3%. That had steadily risen since the summer for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

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