Just How Big A Problem Is It To Find Workers In SE MN

The National Unemployment Rate for the month of July was 3.9% when seasonally adjusted while Minnesota's rate was just 3%. Yet, in South Eastern Minnesota it's even lower. From a low of 2.1% in October of last year to a high of 3.8% this past February and then dropping to just 2.2% this May. The Southeast region has a job seeker-to-vacancy ratio of 0.6 to 1. This means that for every 10 job openings there are only 6 unemployed people. Southeastern Minnesota and the Metro areas are tied as far as the amount of difficulty in finding employees.

The unemployment rate for Southeast Minnesota has been following the up and down trends of Minnesota as whole since May of 2017 but in every month we have had a bit of a lower unemployment rate as the entire state. In November of last year our unemployment rate in Southeast Minnesota was .6% lower than the state's average.

As far as available workers in Southeast Minnesota it reached a peak of 286,031 in June to a low of 280,059 in May. Latest figures from the Department of Employment and Economic Development show the current estimate of available workers in Southeast Minnesota is 283,762.