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Bill Catlin

State adds 7,400 jobs, unemployment rate drops to 3.7 percent

Construction jobs
Carquita Hall talked with Solid LLC's Tim Haubrich about carpentry jobs Wednesday, May 7, 2014, during a Builders Association of the Twin Cities job fair in St. Paul.
Jennifer Simonson | MPR News 2014

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Updated 1:30 p.m. | Posted 9:57 a.m.

Minnesota employers added 7,400 jobs last month and the state's unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development reported Minnesota has gained 25,500 jobs in the past three months and 46,114 jobs over the past year.

The state's payroll employment has increased 1.7 percent over the past year, lagging the U.S. rate of 2.2 percent.

The state's jobless rate dropped 0.1 percent from a revised figure of 3.8 percent in March. The national. unemployment rate in April was 5.4 percent.

The number of Minnesotans participating in the labor force continues to rise, possibly due to more teenagers being more optimistic about finding a job and starting to look for work, state labor economist Steve Hine said.

"For many years they were looking at those typical high school jobs that were being held by older experienced workers, and they couldn't compete," he added.

Construction topped the all other sectors in April with 6,600 new jobs. Other industries that added jobs were:

• Professional and business services (+3,400)
• Trade, transportation and utilities (+2,200)
• Manufacturing (+900)
• Logging and mining (+400)
• Information (+400)

Government lost 2,500 jobs in April, followed by education and health services (-2,200), other services (-700), leisure and hospitality (-600) and information (-500).

MPR News reporter Matt Sepic contributed to this report.