I and my fellow workforce strategy consultants often receive questions about the current state of the economy in general and employment in particular in the areas we represent.
Now with COVID-19, we are hearing from concerned businesses, chambers, community-based organizations, and others want to know what employment sectors will continue to be impacted the most and the least, plus which occupations are in demand and which are in decline in this new reality we are living in.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development Labor Market Analysts have developed a fantastic data tool that allows a person to see numbers of UI applications by day and share of labor force impacted, broken out by county with a color-coded map. (See Figure 1 for a screen shot of the map as of April 23. The map is updated every weekday.) A person can also see a demographic and occupational breakout by week since the COVID-19 pandemic began. And for comparison, historical data by month dating back to the 1990s can be accessed from that same data tool page.
Figure 1
Our DEED Labor Market Analysts have done a great job creating regional profiles for Retail and Personal Care Services Industries, which I have distributed to many of the Chambers, Tourism Bureaus, and businesses in my area and I highly recommend them to anyone with an interest in these sectors.
I’d also like to highlight research released April 3 by Bridget Tuck, Senior Economic Impact Analyst for the University of Minnesota Extension Center for Community Vitality. Her research predicts employment impacts for each Minnesota county, based on each county’s share of total employment in the five industries most likely to be impacted by COVID-19, as identified by the Brookings Institution. Those five industries are: leisure and hospitality, travel arrangements, employment services, transportation, and mining. Based on this information, Tuck created a color coded map showing which counties were likely to have greatest employment impact. (See Figure 2.)
Figure 2
See full report here: https://conservancy.umn.edu/handle/11299/212316
Being the Workforce Strategy Consultant for Northeast Minnesota, I couldn’t help but notice we were in the top quartile for employment impacts for almost the entire area I serve. Data regarding UI applications available in the UI data tool on the DEED website bears out this significant employment impact in Northeast Minnesota. Government, business and community groups are working to address this unprecedented employment impact – and this work will continue over the coming weeks and months as we move toward recovery.
If you are in Northeast Minnesota and you have questions about the LMI resources I’ve mentioned, you can reach out to your local LMI Analyst Carson Gorecki at carson.gorecki@state.mn.us. If you would like to reach me, Workforce Strategy Consultant for Northeast Minnesota, you can reach me at shawn.herhusky@state.mn.us.
