Unemployment rate remains at historic low

October’s unemployment rate remains historically low at 2.1%, up one-tenth of a point from September.  Over the month, Minnesota’s labor force participation rate inched down one-tenth of a point to 68%; the national rate also went down one-tenth of a point to 62.2%. DEED (Department of Employment and Economic Development) Commissioner Steve Grove says there are currently 215,000 job openings in the state:

“That’s three and a half jobs per unemployed person. We are number one in the nation, as a tight labor market in Minnesota. That is the biggest gap between the number of jobs open and the number of people looking for jobs that you’ll find in any state in our country.”

Grove says “with 13 straight months of job growth on the books, we continue to differentiate ourselves as a hot job market – we just need more workers.”