In a mixed report, Minnesota's unemployment rate in December dipped 0.1 percent to 7 percent despite the loss of 22,400 jobs, state officials announced Thursday.

The employment drop was attributed to temporary election-judge jobs ending, state teacher and student jobs closing with the end of the semester and retail, business, health, manufacturing and construction jobs dipping in a surprising fashion.

Mining and logging was the lone sector that added jobs, bumping up just 200 positions.

Officials described December's retail jobs numbers as "disappointing" as retail accounted for most of the 4,000 jobs lost to the trade, transportation and utilities sector.

The state's year-over-year job gains totaled 29,300, a growth rate of 1.1 percent. Still, Minnesota bested the nation, where U.S. job growth over the past year was only 0.8 percent. And Minnesota's 7 percent jobless rate in December also remains significantly below the national rate of 9.4 percent.

"While the labor market remains unpredictable, we are seeing other signs of steady improvement," said Paul Moe, Minnesota's acting commissioner of the Department of Employment and Economic Development. "The state has recovered about 20 percent of the jobs that were lost in the recession. Temp hiring is up and new claims for unemployment benefits are down."

The state's initial unemployment claims fell from 29,972 in November to 24,425 in December in what officials characterized as a steep decline. Nationwide, seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims fell an impressive 37,000 to 404,000 for the week ending Jan. 15, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week moving average fell by 4,000 to 411,750.

In another dose of good news, state officials revised November's 5,100 job losses down to only 1,400. Economists noted that calculating exact month-to-month seasonally adjusted numbers is difficult because of holidays, weather, elections, school year changes and other items.

Construction jobs coming

In December, job losses occurred in government (down 5,300), trade, transportation and utilities (down 4,200), professional and business services (down 3,500), education and health services (down 3,000), leisure and hospitality (down 1,800), manufacturing (down 1,800), construction (down 1,700), financial activities (down 800), other services (down 300) and information (down 200).

Labor Market Office Director Steve Hine said that he found the job declines in manufacturing somewhat surprising. He also expects construction to remain weak for some time as road and civil construction projects slow because of the weather and the housing sector continues to drag.

Still, several construction projects that are in their infancy, such as the Xcel transmission line expansion project and this week's groundbreaking of the $243 million Union Depot renovation in St. Paul. Both should add thousands of jobs in coming months.

The Union Depot project will create 1,200 construction jobs. Wearing a hard hat during Tuesday's chilly groundbreaking ceremony, Mortenson Construction Project Development Director Dan Mehls directed a backhoe driver to rip down a chunk of the old depot truck bays as 400 spectators erupted in applause.

"We'll have 750,000 work hours by crafts people on site plus off-site fabrication" and jobs for scores of truck drivers, he said.

Construction jobs fell by 4,700, year-over-year. Only government had more, losing 7,000 jobs. Financial activities shed 2,700 jobs and other services was down 2,300.

Sectors adding jobs over the past year included manufacturing (up 10,700); education and health services (up 9,800); leisure and hospitality (up 9,600); professional and business services (up 8,300); trade, transportation and utilities (up 4,300); information (up 2,800), and logging and mining (up 600).

Metro regions that added jobs were Rochester (up 1.3 percent), Minneapolis-St. Paul (up 1.2 percent), Duluth-Superior (up 1 percent) and Mankato (up 1 percent). The St. Cloud area declined 0.4 percent.

Dee DePass • 612-673-7725