Minnesota Unemployment Rate Unchanged at 3.7%

State officials say Minnesota’s unemployment rate held steady at 3.7 percent in January even though employers cut 5,000 jobs.

The Department of Employment and Economic Development says 3,800 of those jobs were eliminated in the government sector.

Despite those losses, DEED Commissioner Katie Clark Sieben said that Minnesota’s labor market remains on a growth track, with eight of the 11 major industrial sectors adding jobs over the past year. Minnesota’s labor force participation rate hit a three-year high of 70.5 percent.

The education-and-health-services sector led January’s gainers with 3,000 new jobs.

Minnesota’s January jobless rate of 3.7 percent was below the national rate of 4.9 percent.

Over the past year, Minnesota has gained nearly 30,000 jobs, a growth of 1.4 percent, compared with a national rate of 1.9 percent.