High Demand
This month's Local Look blogs from DEED's Labor Market Information office explore changes in employment across different industries, occupations in demand, rising wages, and regional commuting patterns.
The Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) released updated lists within its Occupations in Demand (OID) tool in January of 2022. This tool shows what jobs are in highest demand in the state of Minnesota and its regions. Beyond occupational demand, these lists also include wage information, projected growth rates and openings, educational requirements, and on-the-job training requirements.
The Leisure & Hospitality industry continued to recover this year, adding more than 2,300 jobs from the third quarter of 2020 to the third quarter of 2021, accounting for almost one-third of the net job gains in the region over the past year. Leisure & Hospitality expanded nearly 10%, more than three times faster than the total of all industries.
During the past year and a half of this pandemic economy and labor market, we have been focused on the number of jobs. While the change in employment is likely the most important indicator of the health and respective recoveries of different regions and industries, it is certainly not the only measure available. Wages are among the other measures DEED's Labor Market Information Office is keeping an eye on..
Northwest Minnesota added nearly 10,000 jobs through the third quarter of 2021, bringing it back to 98.6% of pre-pandemic employment levels. That was the strongest over-the-year job recovery of the six planning regions in the state, and is the closest to regaining all the jobs lost at the outset of the pandemic. However, the region is still about 3,300 jobs below its employment level from the third quarter of 2019, when it peaked with 227,590 jobs .
Close proximity to the Twin Cities metro area as well as La Crosse, Wisconsin means that more Southeast Minnesota residents leave the region for work than non-residents enter the region for work. In fact, OnTheMap data from the Census Bureau show that just under 60,800 Southeast residents travel out of the region for their jobs while just over 48,100 non-resident workers commute into the region for work.
Through the third quarter of 2021, employers in Southwest Minnesota had regained 5,085 jobs compared to the third quarter of 2020according to recently released data from DEED's Quarterly Census of Employment & Wages program. However, the region still has 7,845 fewer jobs compared to the third quarter of 2019, prior to the pandemic recession. That means Southwest is back to just 95.6% of pre-pandemic employment levels, making it the third slowest recovery of the six planning regions in the state .
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