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.
