Labor Force Updates
In this month's Local Look blogs from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development's Labor Market Information office, we explore the significant changes taking place in the labor market in each region.
Twice per year DEED surveys employers throughout the state to estimate hiring demand and job vacancy characteristics by industry and occupation. Recently released data from the fourth quarter of 2020 shows that employers in the Metro Area reported 75,729 job vacancies, which is the fourth-highest number of job vacancies reported in the region since the job vacancy survey began in 2001.
Central Minnesota employers reported over 14,100 job vacancies in the fourth quarter of 2020, roughly the same amount as the record highs posted in 2018 and 2019. This flies in the face of the fact that we're still technically in a recession, which officially started in February 2020 and according to the National Bureau of Economic Research has not ended yet. These historically high job vacancy counts are yet another bizarre outcome of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There were 7,102 job vacancies in Northeast Minnesota in the fourth quarter of 2020, a 14.2% decline from the end of 2019. Despite this decline, the number of vacancies remained relatively high. The number of vacancies in the fourth quarter of 2020 was fourth-highest out of the last ten years. This is not typical during recessionary periods - the number of job vacancies coming out of the Great Recession in 2011 was less than half of the current number and unemployment was significantly higher.
As the regional economy continues to return to normal following the pandemic recession, employers in Northwest Minnesota are in hiring mode again but they're finding a tight labor market. DEED's Job Vacancy Survey from the fourth quarter of 2020 showed 11,255 job openings in the region, which is the fourth highest number on record. When compared to the count of unemployed workers from DEED's Local Area Unemployment Statistics, the region has already returned to a nearly 1-to-1 jobseeker to job vacancy ratio, essentially identical to pre-pandemic times.
After the pandemic recession shook up the labor market last year, Southeast Minnesota has settled back into a tight labor market. Employers are looking for workers and often are struggling to find them for a variety of reasons. It is more than an issue of simple supply and demand. The most recent updates to DEED's Job Vacancy Survey for the fourth quarter of 2020, along with data from DEED's Local Area Unemployment Statistics data, shows that the jobseeker per vacancy ratio in Southeast rests at 1.1-to-1 – with 9,933 unemployed workers for 8,917 job postings.
After seeing the most severe year-over-year decline in job vacancies during the second quarter of 2020, in the midst of the pandemic recession, Southwest Minnesota has now reported the fastest year-over-year increase in job postings in the fourth quarter of 2020. Released last month, data from DEED's Job Vacancy Survey shows that Southwest enjoyed the strongest bounce back of the six planning regions in the state, with employers reporting more than 10,000 vacancies as hiring activity picked up.
Check out these data tool video training sessions:
DEED's Regional Analysis team has produced a set of videos and tutorials to help you better understand our labor market information and answer questions about how to use our data tools, You can access a virtual training session, a video tutorial, or a step-by-step PDF tutorial or contact your regional labor market analyst.
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