Baby boomer retirements and moderate job growth led to a higher number of of job openings in the second quarter of 2016. According to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Minnesota employers reported 97,600 job vacancies. The construction industry made up 6.9 percent of those openings.
With a total of 5,671 openings the number of job vacancies in construction and extraction occupations rose 88 percent compared to this time last year. The last time there were more job vacancies in the construction sector was in 2001 when there were 6,725 job vacancies.
According to the survey, the seven-county Twin Cities metro had 53,984 of the openings (55.3 percent), while Greater Minnesota had 43,616 openings (44.7 percent).
Health care and social assistance accounted for 21.4 percent of the openings statewide, followed by accommodation and food services (14.4 percent), retail trade (12.3 percent), manufacturing (8.7 percent) and construction (6.9 percent).
Click here to see more details from the second quarter report.
DEED conducts the Job Vacancy Survey in the second and fourth quarters each year to gauge hiring demand and to determine job vacancy characteristics by industry, occupation and firm size in Minnesota.
