On Thursday the state releases its monthly jobs report and we'll likely see either a tick up or a tick down in the total number of jobs in Minnesota.
But when we look at the change in number of jobs by industry over the past three years, it becomes very clear that one industry is growing faster than all the others: health care.
Blue collar jobs in manufacturing and construction are still down since September 2009, when the Minnesota job market was at its worst. Jobs in arts and entertainment, publishing, hotels, restaurants and even government are all fewer since the bottom of the recession.
But clerical jobs, private education and health care all offer more jobs than they did in 2009. Whatever these industries lost in the downturn, they've recovered and then some.
As the green tower in the chart below demonstrates, the health care job market is a bull market, adding 30,000 jobs since the bottom of the recession in Minnesota:
