Southwest Minnesota is a national leader in agricultural production, and renewable energy.
The region's thriving manufacturing sector includes food processing, machinery, printing, metal products, and computers and electronic products.
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9/15/2023 9:00:00 AM
Luke Greiner, Amanda O'Connell
With more than 32,000 jobs at just over 630 establishments, manufacturing is once again the largest jobs-providing industry in Southwest Minnesota. Manufacturing accounts for almost one in every five jobs in the 23-county region, and has the largest payroll of any industry, providing 22.7% of total wages. In fact, average annual wages in Manufacturing neared $62,000 in 2022, which was about $11,000 higher than the total of all industries.
Providing 18.7% of total jobs, Southwest Minnesota has the highest reliance on manufacturing of the six planning regions in the state, and has strengths in several subsectors (see Figure 1).
The largest is Food Manufacturing, with 12,022 jobs at 121 establishments – providing over one-third of the manufacturing jobs in the region, and being more than four times as concentrated in the region compared to the state. Other important sectors include Machinery Manufacturing (66 firms and 3,574 jobs), Printing & Related Support Activities (62 firms and 2,381 jobs), Fabricated Metal Product Manufacturing (95 firms and 2,124 jobs), and Electrical Equipment, Appliance, and Component Manufacturing (19 firms and 1,959 jobs), which is also four times more concentrated in Southwest (see Figure 2).
Manufacturers in the region reported more than 3,000 job vacancies in 2022, setting a new record high. Only Health Care & Social Assistance had more unfilled postings, with both industries seeing a rapid rise in open positions since a brief drop during the Pandemic Recession in 2020. Almost one-third (30%) of these openings are part-time, and just 16% require postsecondary education, with employers instead looking more for prior work experience (30%). Vacancies have increased nearly 150% compared to 2019, prior to the pandemic (see Figure 3).
Specific manufacturing-related occupations that are in high demand include:
Contact Luke Greiner at luke.greiner@state.mn.us or Amanda O'Connell at amanda.oconnell@state.mn.us.
