Report: St. Cloud Metro Added Over 1,000 Jobs In Past 12 Months

ST. CLOUD -- The St. Cloud metro area added over 1,000 new jobs over the past 12 months, according to numbers released this week by the state. The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development says from November 2018 through November 2019 we gained 1,016 jobs.

St. Cloud State University Economics Professor King Banaian says those figures probably don't reflect the roughly 720 jobs lost at Electrolux on November 1st.

I'm looking at the manufacturing sector alone and it added about 270 jobs year over year through November.  So the manufacturing sector has done reasonably well over this period even with Electrolux going offline at the end of October.

The Mankato area added over 1,500 jobs during the same period, the Rochester area added over 1,200 jobs, and Duluth-Superior remained flat. However, the Twin Cities area actually lost over 5,700 jobs from November to November.

Banaian says our labor force has been steadily growing.

I look at the number of people who are entering the labor force at this time and those numbers we have never seen before.  We're at 115,000 workers in the area in the labor force as of October.

Banaian cautions that unemployment typically does tick up in January and February, plus the Electrolux workers who lost their jobs when the plant closed on November 1st will likely be reflected in the coming months as well.

Banaian says the St. Cloud metro area's unemployment rate as of October was 2.3 percent, our November figure will be released next week. Meanwhile, the state unemployment rate is 3.3% and the national unemployment rate is 3.5 percent.