With nearly 190,000 residents, the St. Cloud Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)is the third largest MSA by population that is primarily located in Minnesota. Though the city itself also stretches into Sherburne County, the St. Cloud MSA includes just Stearns and Benton counties. Combined, these two counties account for nearly 38 percent of all jobs in the 13-county Central Minnesota region. According to data from DEED’s Current Employment Statistics program, the St. Cloud MSA averaged more than 112,000 jobs over the past three months, the highest number ever recorded.
By averaging the number of jobs estimated each month from January through November 2019, CES data show that the St. Cloud MSA grew employment by +1.4 percent compared to the same 11-month average in 2018, or an additional 1,551 jobs. While +1.4 percent growth might not seem impressive at first glance, consider that the St. Cloud MSA grew nearly 5 times faster than Minnesota overall, which grew employment by just +0.3 percent during the same time period.
Using that same calculation, the St. Cloud MSA grew faster than any other MSA in the state through the first 11 months of 2019, compared to the same 11 months in 2018. Rochester was the second fastest growing MSA at +1.2 percent, while the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MSA saw a decline of -0.1 percent (see Figure 1).
Growth was heavily concentrated in a few industries in the St. Cloud MSA during 2019, with mining, logging and construction adding the largest number of jobs and showing far and away the fastest growth rate (+14%). In the St. Cloud MSA, almost all of that job growth was in construction subsector. Education and health also saw above average growth (+2.9%), as well as manufacturing and financial activities.
The information sector had the largest percentage decline (-6.9%), while trade, transportation and utilities lost the most jobs (-275 jobs). Of the trade, transportation and utilities, retail trade was the only component to shed jobs, enough to pull negative the overall trends of the larger industry sector (see Figure 2).
It should be noted that the data used for monthly employment figures from Current Employment Statistics is revised on a monthly basis and will also be benchmarked in the coming months, so it’s likely that some small changes in the numbers will occur. However, the overall trends are not likely to change substantially.
For More Information, contact Luke Greiner at 320-308-5378.
