MN construction industry gains 300 jobs in September.

Byline: William Morris

The Minnesota construction industry gained 300 new jobs in September as contractors continued to struggle to find enough workers for projects. But the state's labor market as a whole lost 1,400 jobs, according to new data from the Department of Employment and Economic Development.

The unemployment rate keeps falling anyway.

Thursday's report also revised August's overall job loss from 200, as initially reported, to 2,500. Despite the job losses, the unemployment rate slipped one-tenth of a percentage point to 2.8 percent -- the lowest rate reported since May 1999.

"We keep thinking we're hitting the floor every month, and yet it keeps trending downward every month," said Sanjukta Chaudhuri, a research analyst for the state's Labor Market Information Office at DEED.

Construction employment grew 0.2 percent from August to September, but that's consistent with national trends, Chaudhuri said. The nation as a whole saw construction employment grow 0.3 percent last month. During the previous 12 months, Minnesota construction employment has grown 4.2 percent compared with 5 percent nationwide.

There isn't a ton of room for construction employment to grow, given the current workforce shortage, said Bob Heise, Minnesota/North Dakota chapter president for Associated Builders and Contractors. An Oct. 2 report by the national ABC organization found Minnesota's construction unemployment rate as of August was 2.4 percent, the ninth-lowest in the country. North Dakota's rate was the lowest at 1 percent.

"Construction unemployment remains at an all-time historical low," Heise said in an interview, adding that demand is unlikely to slow any time soon. "We expect a sustained strong and robust economy in the construction industry. I don't see any slowdown in 2019."

Looking through the winter into spring, finding workers will continue to be the primary challenge for contractors, said Tim Worke, CEO of Associated General Contractors of Minnesota.

"[Companies] could be working crews maybe more hours and trying to find folks where they can," he said in an interview. "It's a symptom of the broader economy. Construction is no different than any other sector of the economy."

The decline in the statewide unemployment rate is largely due to a drop in the state's labor force participation rate, Chaudhuri said. After hitting 70.6 percent in May and June, the percentage of adults holding or seeking jobs has declined a bit every month since then...

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