Greater Twin Cities United Way

The most recent job vacancy survey is out (thanks to Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development—DEED—for the timely release of this key report just before Labor Day) and it has some good news. Not unexpectedly, the job vacancy rate has improved, with statewide vacancies up 15.1% in the second quarter 2012 compared to a year ago. What this means is that there are 2.6 unemployed Minnesotans for each job opening in the state, an improvement from 3.6 one year ago (and a big improvement from 2009, when it stood at 7.9). Things are just a little better in the Twin Cities, with 2.5 unemployed people per job opening, than in Greater Minnesota which has 2.7 unemployed people per job opening.

Additional details:

• 42% of open jobs are for part-time work.
• 19% are for temporary or seasonal work.
• More than half (56%) require no education beyond a high school diploma or GED.
• Median wage offer is $11.06/hour. This translates into a full-time annual salary of $23,005.
• Just over half of jobs (55%) offer health insurance. If I were to be irreverent, I might infer that about 45% of jobs currently open are pretty crappy jobs.

Here’s what I mean: As mentioned above, the median wage offer for currently open jobs in Minnesota is $11.06/hour. It’s a little better in the metro area ($12/hour, or $24,960 annually full time) than in Greater Minnesota ($10.08/hour, or $20,966 annually full time). DEED also provides information about median wage by industry and occupational groups. (You really must read the full report if you like data. There’s tons there and some good historical data as well.)

The top occupations in terms of job openings in Minnesota are:

• Sales and Related Occupations
• Food Preperation and Serving Related Occupations
• Office and Administrative Support Occupations
• Health Care Practitioners and Technical Occupations
• Transportation and Material Moving Occupations

Together, these five occupations groups make up 46.7% of current job openings in Minnesota. The starting median wages vary quite a bit, as do the part-time rates. The highest wage is for health care practitioner, where you’ll start with an annual salary of $39,520 per year if you get one of the full-time jobs. But that’s not likely because only 36% of the job openings are for full-time work.

If you land one of the more numerous jobs in food prep, your annual full-time wage will be $15,704—barely half of the health care practitioner income. But that’s if the food prep job is full time, which is unlikely because only 32% of food prep job openings in Minnesota are for full-time work.

So while the job landscape is getting better, it’s still a long way from good. There are more jobs available, but a lot of them don’t pay much, and barely half offer health care benefits. There may be a light at the end, but we still have a long ways to go in this tunnel.