by Don Heinzman --

Dan McElroy, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) said he’s optimistic about the Minnesota economy in the long run.

Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Dan McElroy fielded every question that was fired at him by the ECM Editorial Board last Friday at the ECM Center, Coon Rapids. McElroy said there are definitely positive signs in the areas of more jobs and less unemployment. (Photo by Howard Lestrud, ECM Online)

McElroy told the ECM Publishers Editorial Board he’s hoping the state employment rate will be 6.7 percent to 6.9 percent by December and 5.0 or 6 percent a year from now.  In December, it was 7.4 percent, and this week it was down to 7.3 percent.

Minnesota’s work force participation rate is 72.2 percent, which along with North Dakota’s leads the nation.

The commissioner said that Minnesota’s employment rate during the last 408 months has been lower than the national rate for 399 months, the same as the national rate three times and worse six.  All six of those months were during this latest recession.

The highest state unemployment rate since data has been kept was 9 percent in 1982 and the highest in this recession was 8.4 percent in June of 2009.

One positive sign for McElroy is the work week that has grown from 31.2 hours in September to 32.6 hours in December.  The manufacturing work week in December was up to 40 hours and early indications are it will get better.

Hiring temporary help is slowing down, indicating companies are beginning to hire more full-time employees.

DEED has an online job bank and last Thursday the number of job listings in was 32,000 compared to 21,000 in January and 16,000 in December.

One important development has been use of the federal stimulus dollars in several places.  DEED received $322 million in stimulus funds last year.

“The biggest has been unemployment insurance, providing over $700 million last year to 350,000 Minnesota citizens,” said McElroy.  By state and federal law, the unemployment compensation would have run out for unemployed workers in 46 weeks. Stimulus money was used to pay for another 40 weeks.

Another $130 million went into the state’s Unemployment Insurance trust fund to help pay for benefits for Minnesotans who lost their jobs.

In addition the stimulus provided another $100 a month to the unemployed, and the first $2,100 in 2009 and 2010 was and will be tax exempt.

All totaled, DEED last year provided $2.8 billion from the Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, including the stimulus funds.

Stimulus funding paid 60 percent of nine months of COBRA benefits, McElroy said.  DEED received $197 million in federal stimulus money to help build sanitary sewer and water facilities, enabling communities to leverage money from the state’s revolving loan funds.

Projects in 40 communities received low interest loans and grants at a time when steel and concrete prices went down and bids from contractors came in 15 to 20 percent below estimate.

By the end of the year 178 construction jobs had been created or retained in communities when the projects were being built.

In addition $21 million went into the state’s dislocated worker program where 7,500 were served, $17.8 million went into the Youth Employment program, employing 6,150 youth.

One thousand individuals were served in the Adult Employment and Training program, $6.3 million helped people in vocational Rehabilitation Services, $7 million was used to develop green jobs.