Minnesota’s unemployment rate stays nearly the same from May to June

New June jobs data released from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) shows the state’s unemployment rate nearly unchanged at 2.9%, up only one-tenth of a percentage point from May.

That number is much lower than the national average unemployment rate, which also increased a tenth of a point from May to June to 4.1%.

Minnesota’s labor force participation rate moved down two-tenths of a point to 67.8%, which is also better than the national June rate of 62.6%, DEED says.

The month also saw a seasonally adjusted loss of 3,200 jobs in the state with 3,300 jobs in the private sector. It’s one of four months in the last year that saw job losses, while eight months had job gains.

DEED says the job losses for the month over were in six supersectors: 3,000 in Professional & Business Services, a loss of 2,100 jobs in Leisure & Hospitality and 1,600 jobs in Manufacturing.

However, four areas had seasonally adjusted job gains: 4,500 added for Education & Health Services and 300 in construction.

Despite continued inflation, DEED says that wages for Minnesota employees have again outpaced inflation and national wage growth with hourly private sector workers seeing 5.7%, or $2.02, increase over the year, outpacing the Consumer Price Index, a way to measure inflation, which rose 3% in the last year.

“Looking at the big picture, Minnesota’s job growth is still growing over the year and wage growth has been generally higher than inflation over the same period,” said DEED’s Labor Market Information Director Angelina Nguyễn.