by Oriane Casale
May 2024
During 2023, employers reported a total of 139,059 vacancies, down 24.7% from second quarter 20221 (see Figure 1). This is the fifth highest number of vacancies on record in Minnesota dating back to 2001. However, it is well down from the previous two years, 2021 and 2022, when labor markets in Minnesota and the nation were bouncing back from the Pandemic Recession. Detailed Minnesota Job Vacancy Survey data, including the time series back to 2022.
In 2023 compared to second quarter 2022, the number of vacancies declined and the number of unemployed individuals increased. With 87,000 unemployed workers statewide in 2023, there were 0.6 unemployed persons for each vacancy, meaning that there were close to twice as many open positions as unemployed individuals in Minnesota. This is up from 2021 (0.5 workers for every one vacancy) and 2022 (0.4 works for every one vacancy), but just below 2019 (0.7 works for every vacancy) prior to the Pandemic Recession. The current rate suggests that the labor market remained tight in 2023.
These 139,059 total vacancies translate into a job vacancy rate of 5.1%, or 5.1 job openings for every 100 filled jobs in the state. This rate is down from 6.9% during second quarter 2022.
Regionally, 78,325 or 56.3% of all job vacancies were located in the seven-county Twin Cities metro area, while the remaining 60,734 vacancies or 43.7% were located in Greater Minnesota in 2023. Compared to one year ago, the number of job vacancies decreased by 20.3% in the Twin Cities and 29.6% in Greater Minnesota.
As in past years, the job vacancy rate was higher in Greater Minnesota (5.8%) than in the Twin Cities (4.6%), with both exhibiting tight labor markets. The Twin Cities had a ratio of 0.6 unemployed persons to every one job vacancy, while Greater Minnesota had a slightly higher ratio at 0.7 unemployed persons to every one job vacancy.
Statewide the Health Care and Social Assistance industry had the most job vacancies with more than 36,000 openings followed by Retail Trade with almost 24,000 vacancies, Accommodation and Food Services with 18,600 postings, and Manufacturing with almost 11,800 vacancies. Combined, those four industries accounted for almost two-thirds of the total openings in the state (see Figure 2).
The statewide job vacancy rate was 5.1%. Three industries had a higher job vacancy rate: Accommodations and Food Services had the highest vacancy rate at 8.6% followed by Retail Trade at 8.4% and Health Care and Social Assistance at 7.3%.
Three industries saw an increase in job vacancies over the year: Public Administration, Utilities, and Management of Companies and Enterprises. The remainder saw decreases with the largest in Health Care and Social Assistance, Accommodation and Food Services, Manufacturing, Retail Trade, Educational Services, Finance and Insurance, Administrative and Waste Services, Professional and Business Services, and Transportation and Warehousing.
By occupational group Food Preparation and Serving had the most job vacancies with just over 20,100 postings and a vacancy rate of 9.3%, followed by Sales and Related, with 18,100 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 7.6%, Healthcare Practitioners and Technical, just over 15,100 openings and a vacancy rate of 8.1%, Healthcare Support, with almost 11,400 openings and vacancy rate of 7.0%, and Transportation and Material Moving with 9,500 openings and a vacancy rate of 4.2%.
Five occupational groups saw small increases compared to second quarter 2022: Internships, Apprenticeships, Protective Service, Legal, and Community and Social Service occupations. All other groups saw losses compared to second quarter 2022, with the largest declines in Food Preparation and Serving, Sales and Related, Production, Healthcare Support, Transportation and Material Moving, Healthcare Practitioners and Technical, and Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance occupations.
The 10 detailed occupations with the most job vacancies during second quarter 2022 were Retail Salespersons with 7,599 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 11.4%, Personal Care Aides with 5,669 vacancies, Fast Food and Counter Workers with 5,648 vacancies with a vacancy rate of 10.5%, Registered Nurses with 4,382 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 6.9%, First-line Supervisors of Food Prep and Serving Workers with 4,156 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 24.4%, Cashiers with 3,334 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 5.8%, First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers with 3,075 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 16.1%, Nursing Assistants with 2,591 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 10.4%, Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers with 2,299 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 6.5%, and Stockers and Order Fillers with 2,259 vacancies and a vacancy rate of 5.4%.
By size, medium-small firms with 10 to 49 employees had the highest job vacancy rate at 7.9%, followed by small firms with 1 to 9 employees, at 6.4%. The largest firms, those with 250 or more employees, had the lowest vacancy rate at 3.0%. These largest firms also had the highest median wage offer ($23.88 per hour).
Along with the number of vacancies, employers also report on the characteristics of their job vacancies. Some key characteristics of 2023 Minnesota job vacancies are as follows:
The median (50th percentile) wage offer for all job vacancies was $19.68 per hour in 2023. This is easily the highest median wage offer in the history of the Minnesota Job Vacancy Survey, reflecting both employers offering higher starting wages and a changing mix of available occupations. Figure 6 shows the median wage offers from 2002 to 2023 in current dollars as well as in inflation adjusted dollars. As the orange line shows, despite their steady increase in current dollars, wage offers have just barely beat inflation over the 21-year data series and have been mostly flat over the last three years.
As Figure 5 illustrates, wage offers are highly correlated with experience and education requirements.
Employers provide information on their job openings twice a year to enable us to estimate hiring demand and job vacancy characteristics by industry, occupation and firm size in Minnesota. The information is gathered through a survey of 6,996 firms stratified by 6 regions of the state, 20 industry sectors, and 4 size classes. This sample is split between the two rounds, second and fourth quarters of each year. The 2023 survey had a response rate of 92.4% across both rounds.
About one-third of the surveyed firms respond by to a mailed survey or phone call. LMI survey staff collect another one-third of responses by hand directly from employer websites. The final third is collected by an automated data scraping tool that scaped data from employer websites and parses it for the specific information needed. As a second step to ensure quality, survey staff review data for each employer. Find the full survey methodology.
Minnesota Job Vacancy Survey data provide job seekers and counselors with information on occupations showing hiring demand within their region. Job vacancy information also helps employment, training and education providers understand current labor market conditions in their region and tailor services to better meet customer and employer needs. For example, these data are incorporated into the Occupations In Demand (OID) tool, which was developed in partnership with the DEED Workforce Development team to help job seekers and counselors find out what jobs are in high demand in each region of the state, including the typical wage, long-term employment outlook, training (or degree) required and schools that offer training programs for each occupation. Finally, job vacancy data provide a leading labor market indicator.
1 This 2023 release round rolls out a new methodology for the survey that divides the sample and data collection across two rounds, second and fourth quarters of the year. The advantages of this methodology are that the time series going back to 2001 is maintained while the annual sample size, and thus the annual data collection and processing effort, is shrunk in half. However, since we were unable to run a survey during fourth quarter 2022 from lack of funding, this analysis will compare 2023 data to second quarter 2022 data.
