The title for this post should be where are the jobs? Jobs and housing are tied together.
The national unemployment rate is 9.5%. The highest unemployment rate Minnesota ever had was 9.0% in November of 1982, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, and the lowest unemployment rate was 2.5% back in 1999. Life was good then, but it kind of ended shortly after 9/11/2001 at least in the high tech sector where I used to work.
For those who would like to go live in warmer climates but would need a job the unemployment rate is higher in the sunbelt, except for New Mexico where it is the same as it is in Minnesota. Most of the jobs in Minnesota are in the Twin Cities Metro area, as is most of the population of Minnesota. Young people leave the small towns and farming communities and come to the cities for employment. North Dakota has an unemployment rate of around 4%. Maybe they will let people from the Twin Cities who need work telecommute. Unemployment is also lower in Iowa but higher in Wisconsin.
As for some advice on how to find a job in Minnesota you find a job here the same way that you find a job any place else, by networking. Sending resumes out to major employers is a waste of time. It is all on the internet now and they can screen people out faster than ever, and have a much easier time ignoring most applicants. You won't find many jobs in the newspaper either, people don't advertise in the papers much. I found an article on the Bee Hive about which industries are hiring. Health care, Law enforcement, and something called 'green construction' are the top three. I also found a report that has the outlook for employment in Minnesota. it is published by the state department of economic security, Personally I have never had anything like economic security but I suppose some people do. State employees that make those PDF's that they publish online probably have some job security.
I can't just post graphs and charts two days in a row so I am including this photo of the showy lady slipper, our state flower, or is it the state bird? I forget which. I took the photo almost a year ago but I think they still look the same.
We are indeed doing “OK” here in Minnesota, which almost looks good by comparison. There are a few good signs as I go out there networking, but it’s still really hard. I would not want to bet on when it picks up for real, but it sure could be worse.
I can vouch for the Sun Belt being hard hit. Our unemployment rate in Arizona is approaching 10%. And our State Government is even more broke than California (though we don’t get as much attention because we are not as large as our neighbor, nor do we have The Governator as our Executive). On the bright side… we are always looking for Phoenix limo drivers so feel free to email me if you’re interested… Just doing our part to combat the unemployment here! Gonna be a slow crawl out of this mess, no doubt!