Minnesota’s unemployment rate was up slightly last month. The state jobless rate was up a tenth of a point to 3.2% in April.
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Commissioner Matt Varilek says the state shed some 13-hundred jobs…
“It did so because nearly 3,300 workers were added to the labor force, and so now for 10 months for the last 12, we have added job seekers to the labor force, which helps to ease the tight labor market.”
Varilek says mass layoff announcements from the federal government or other employers are not reflected in this data because a job decline will not appear until employees are actually off the payroll…
“Those are real, but the pace at which they’re being implemented, of course, and the timing of when they appear in our data that is variable and may in some cases be offset by growth that we’re trying to drive in other areas.”
Over the year, Minnesota has added 35,480 payroll jobs, and the private sector has gained 26,477 jobs. The state’s labor force participation rate is 68.2%, compared to 62.6% nationally.
The Minnesota county-by-county jobless rate for April should be released next week.
