From 2022 to 2024, Northeast Minnesota added nearly 4,000 jobs, growing total employment by 2.9% (see Figure 1). Much of this could still be deemed recovery from the impacts of the COVID pandemic, yet there are also trends that point to other factors at play. From 2020 to 2021, the rate of employment growth in the region was 1.9%. That pace fell to 1.5% for each of the two following years, before slowing again slightly to 1.4% from 2023 to 2024. With the slowing growth also came some changes in which industries were adding jobs.

During the first two years of the recovery from 2020 to 2022, the fastest employment growth occurred in industries that were most exposed to the impacts of COVID. These included subsectors in Arts, Entertainment and Design as well as Accommodation and Food Services. However, among the fastest growing were also several Manufacturing industries like Primary Metal Manufacturing, Transportation Equipment Manufacturing and Beverage and Tobacco Manufacturing. These industries were not hit nearly as hard as those in Leisure & Hospitality, yet still grew rapidly in that initial recovery period.

Two years post-COVID, there was a change in which industries were growing fastest. Several Leisure & Hospitality industries continued to grow faster than the overall average, but they all fell down the rankings. Now at the top were several additional Manufacturing industries, Construction of Buildings, government Administration of Human Resource Programs, and Ambulatory Health Care Services (see Table 1). Of the eleven fastest-growing industries over the past two years, five of them were also among the fastest-growing over the past decade.

Beverage Manufacturing and Transportation Equipment Manufacturing persisted in the top ten fastest growing, as did Construction of Buildings. Miscellaneous Manufacturing, Computer and Electronic Product Manufacturing and Nonmetallic Manufacturing saw recent surges that took them from employment declines to some of the fastest growth among all industries. Ambulatory Health Care Services and Social Assistance were notable among the fastest-growing for their size, having more than double the number of jobs than the third-largest industry. Between them, they added over 1,600 jobs over two years.

There were also several industries that began the 2020s strongly, only to reverse course. Those also included Manufacturing industries such as Primary Metal Manufacturing, Furniture and Related Product Manufacturing, and Textile Product Mills as well Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction, and Motion Picture and Sound Recording Industries. Other subsectors such as Insurance Carriers and Related Activities and Apparel Manufacturing continued longer-term cool streaks.

As the last four years have shown, past trends – or even recent ones – are no guarantee of future direction when it comes to employment fortunes for local industries. Some industries have grown or declined consistently while others have fluctuated drastically even year to year.

Some of this can be attributable to size of the industry. Small employment changes can register as relatively large percent changes in smaller industries when one company is having a great or difficult year. And the direction of a larger sector is not necessarily a great indicator of a smaller sub-industry's success.

Manufacturing is a great example of this. Some Manufacturing industries have been among the fastest-growing in our region, just as others have been among the fastest-contracting. As a result, the net sector trends can tell us only part of the story. Only by digging down temporally and by detailed industry can we illuminate some of the more hidden employment dynamics.

For more information about employment changes in Northeast Minnesota, contact Carson Gorecki at Carson.Gorecki@state.mn.us.