From the shop that fixes your car to the salon that cuts your hair to the church down the street, Other Services is one of the most everyday, easy-to-overlook industries in the regional economy. Yet beneath its unassuming name sits a mix of trades and organizations worth a closer look, especially as Southeast Minnesota's employment in this sector approaches, but hasn't quite reached, where it stood before the pandemic.

Other Services is a catch-all industry title for establishments that don't fit into more specific sectors. It breaks into four main subsectors: Repair and Maintenance, covering auto shops, electronics repair and industrial machinery servicing; Personal and Laundry Services, including salons, dry cleaners and funeral homes; Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional and Similar Organizations, spanning churches, charities, unions and advocacy groups; and Private Households, the smallest piece, covering workers directly employed by households like housekeepers and caregivers.

In Southeast Minnesota, the sector held 6,544 jobs across 1,368 firms in 2025, generating $255.5 million in total payroll at an average annual wage of $39,000, well below the region's average of $69,264 across all industries. Since 2019, employment hasn't grown, down just 18 jobs (-0.3%), essentially recovering to where it stood before the pandemic but not surpassing it. That puts Southeast Minnesota in the middle of the pack among the state's planning regions: it outperformed Northeast Minnesota (-12.4%), the Seven-County Twin Cities Metro (-2.3%) and Southwest Minnesota (-2.0%), but trailed Central Minnesota (+0.6%) and Northwest Minnesota (+1.0%), the only two regions to see growth in the sector despite the pandemic.

However, that near-flat regional total masks real movement by subsector. Repair and Maintenance grew the most, up 258 jobs (+14.7%) since 2019, the strongest performance of any subsector and well above its pre-pandemic level. Personal and Laundry Services grew more modestly, up just 1.5%. Religious, Grantmaking, Civic, Professional, and Similar Organizations saw the steepest decline, down 277 jobs (-10.6%), making it the main drag on the sector's overall numbers and the only subsector still meaningfully below where it stood in 2019. Private Households, the smallest subsector with the least consistent employment reporting, also contracted 27 jobs (-11.5%).

Wages tell a related story. Repair and Maintenance generates the most total payroll in the sector ($109.1 million) despite having fewer jobs than Personal and Laundry Services or Civic Organizations, simply because it pays better. At the four-digit level, Commercial and Industrial Machinery Repair ($63,804) and Electronic and Precision Equipment Repair ($62,192) lead the sector in average annual wages, followed by Automotive Repair ($52,416). At the other end, Civic and Social Organizations pay just $16,484 on average, the lowest wage of any subsector, likely reflecting a high share of part-time and volunteer-adjacent staff.

It is important to note that these figures, taken from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), only capture businesses that have paid employees that are covered by the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system, meaning this sector's actual size is likely undercounted given how much it relies on self-employment. In fact, Nonemployer Statistics for 2023 show Southeast Minnesota has 3,415 nonemployer firms in Other Services, more than double the 1,368 employer firms captured in QCEW. In other words, roughly 71% of all business entities in this sector operate without paid employees. The gap is most dramatic in Personal and Laundry Services, where nonemployer firms outnumber employer firms nearly seven to one, a reflection of the many solo hair stylists, independent estheticians and laundromat operators who don't show up in traditional employment counts.

Taken together, the numbers point to an industry that has stabilized rather than transformed since the pandemic, with growth in the trades offsetting declines in civic life. Repair and Maintenance is thriving, a reflection of just how car-dependent the region is, while traditional civic and fraternal organizations continue to lose jobs. And with roughly seven in ten businesses in this sector operating without UI-covered employees, Other Services remains, at its core, an industry built on independent, small-scale work that official payroll counts only partly capture.

For more information about Other Services in Southeast Minnesota, contact Amanda Blaschko at Amanda.Blaschko@state.mn.us.