A Wintry Mix
Despite the recent snow, our Local Look blogs are still delivered on time for the holiday season. This month's blog posts cover a variety of topics ranging from the increase in hiring in Retail Trade in the southern half of the state and the Twin Cities metro to the increase in housing costs in Central Minnesota, and a focus on the importance of caregiving and care facilities in Northern Minnesota. For more information, please reach out to your local Regional Analyst!
With the month of December and the holiday season upon us, let's take a closer look into the Metro Area's Retail Trade employment. With nearly 8,200 establishments supplying over 154,200 jobs, Retail Trade is the Metro Area's third largest-employing industry sector. Perhaps overlooked in workforce development, almost one in every ten jobs in the region is in this industry!
Home ownership has long been held in high regard in America. Owning a home can provide housing stability, mitigate risks of rent increases, and build and transfer wealth. However, home ownership is not without downsides, such as maintenance, large down payments, geographic immobility, and rising interest costs, all of which can easily create problems for homeowners. Despite the risks, owning a home is an important part of the American Dream and has been a terrific investment for most who have taken the leap.
One result of the COVID-19 pandemic is a growing consensus that domestic work and care work are undervalued. Domestic workers perform work such as cleaning, child care, personal care, or health care for or in private households. Part of why these kinds of workers are overlooked is that much of the work occurs outside of the most regulated and documented areas of the economy. A fair share of domestic work is performed by self-employed individuals.
Health Care & Social Assistance is the largest industry sector in Northwest and statewide. As of 2022, Northwest Minnesota total employment is within 3.9% of the 2019 pre-pandemic peak, while the Health Care & Social Assistance sector is still down 6.3%. This lagging growth in Health Care marks a stark divergence from the prior trend. In the three years before the pandemic, Health Care & Social Assistance grew 5.2% from 2016 to 2019, more than two-and-a-half times faster than the 1.9% growth in total employment.
Retail Trade is an important sector in Southeast, with the third largest number of jobs in the region. There were 1,593 retail trade establishments providing 26,184 jobs in Southeast Minnesota in 2022. This accounts for 11% of total employment in the region. The top Retail Trade sectors include General Merchandise Retailers, Food & Beverage Stores, and Gasoline Stations & Fuel Dealers. The average annual wage for Retail Trade was $32,084.
With the holiday season in full swing, consumer spending remained strong in the U.S. despite on-going inflationary pressures. This has translated into economic opportunity in Southwest Minnesota, where Retail Trade is one of only two industries that has more jobs now than prior to the pandemic. Even as consumer spending habits have changed, retailers have been adding jobs in the region, up nearly 1% compared to 2019, and up nearly 2,000 jobs compared to the outset of the pandemic recession in 2020. Through the second quarter of 2022, Retail Trade had 19,040 jobs at 1,445 establishments in the region.
Please reach out to your regional analyst if you or your staff would be interested in having a customized LMI training session. We would be happy to accommodate your training requests, either on LMI Data Tools or local economic conditions!
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