A year ago we were looking at a sharp dip in the employment numbers. I thought it would be fun to look at general employment data for Minnesota a year later. Here is a screenshot from the US Bureau of labor statistics for non-farm employment in Minnesota.
The unemployment rate for the state is around 4.4% The unemployment rate in the Twin Cities is currently closer to 5%. After having survived an unemployment rate of just over 11% the year I graduated from college the number doesn’t sound bad yet there is a lot of pain. I know people who can not find work in their field and businesses that have closed.
It does look like we are better off jobs-wise than we were during the great recession. I recall that last year after the big dip increases in employment were parlayed as economic grown and they were but I think it is important to look at a couple of year’s worth of data rather than just a 90 day period to get a more accurate view of where we are at.
Today marks the last day of the first quarter of 2021. There should be a slew of employment numbers at the end of the week.
