HispanicBusiness

News of layoffs, bankruptcies and high-stakes financial crisis have dominated headlines for so long, it's easy to overlook a profound shift under way in the economy.

Companies in Minnesota are hiring again.

The state is up more than 19,000 jobs from a year ago, and employers have been advertising more open positions, a state survey shows. The state Chamber of Commerce says 40 percent of the nearly 500 small and midsize employers it surveyed over the past year said they expect to add jobs next year, up from 27 percent a year earlier.

"We're doing just a little bit better each month," state economist Tom Stinson said. "We didn't fall as hard, and we've come back a little faster."

The job growth is far short of what the state needs, of course, after the deepest jobs crisis of any postwar recession. And government budget cuts continue to take a toll, with 3,100 public-sector jobs lost over the past year. If you're one of the state's 73,275 long-term unemployed, signs of an expansion are understandably hard to see.

Yet there they are, like green shoots sticking out of the tangled mess of a garden after the snow melts.

Unemployment claims, trending down, dropped nearly 16 percent in October from a year ago. The state's official unemployment rate stands at 6.4 percent, the lowest in nearly three years.

The job gains are spread across several sectors: transportation and utilities, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, education and health care -- even manufacturing.

"You cannot find a machinist to save your life," said Karen Gureghian, a human resources consultant for HR Business Partners in Plymouth. "It does seem like something's changed."

The state's top labor economist, Steve Hine, said he's particularly encouraged by gains in "professional and business services" -- a broad category that includes lawyers, scientific staff and business managers as well as secretaries and janitors.

Unlike education and health care, which continued growth through the recession, the professional and business services category shed jobs. That's changing. And it's important, Hine said, because jobs in that sector are largely dependent on business needs across other parts of the economy.

"So gains suggest strength elsewhere, as well," he said.

Hurdles remain

How long will it take for a full employment recovery? Often, the economy snaps back sharply from a recession. That clearly hasn't happened this time, as the collapse in real estate values continues to strangle household balance sheets and consumer demand.

Both Stinson and Hine stop short of saying Minnesota has turned a corner. With a broader measure of unemployment -- including the marginally employed and people who have given up searching -- averaging about 13 percent, no one is calling an end to the jobs crisis yet.

Uncertainties on the policy front worry Stinson. "Is Congress going to agree to extend the payroll tax cut? Is the European Union going to figure out how to solve the financial problems that they have about there? Those are big questions," he said.

The research firm IHS Global Insight doesn't expect the state's employment level to regain its 2008 peak of 2.78 million jobs until the middle of 2014. So far, the state has recovered about one-third of the nearly 160,000 jobs it lost in the recession.