• Minnesota added 15,600 jobs in January.

It was the largest one-month gain since April 2005.

• The state's jobless rate dropped to 7.3 percent from 7.4 percent in December.

The national jobless rate is 9.7 percent.

THE ROAD AHEAD

• Unemployment is expected to stay high into 2011.

• 162,000 Minnesotans have lost jobs in two years.

• Economic improvement is steady, slow.

• Minnesota could come out of the recession sooner than U.S. as a whole.