Minnesota employers added 8,900 jobs between September and November, according a release Thursday from the Department of Employment and Economic Development. Minnesota also added nearly 8,500 people from September to November to the labor force, which accounts for the rise in the unemployment rate d espite the addition of more jobs. The state’s labor force participation rate was 68.2%. This measures the percentage of people either working or actively seeking work, and is used to calculate the headline unemployment rate. As more people enter the work force, the unemployment rate rises eve as jobs are added. Minnesota’s unemployment rate was 4% in November, compared with 4.6% nationally, rising by 0.3 percentage points since September as the state added more job seekers “Minnesota’s employers are continuing to hire even as national trends point in an uncertain direction,” said DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek in the release. “Minnesota employers are adding jobs while the national labor market stalls out, which is good news for our state. We are monitoring our unemployment rate and working hard to connect workers to good jobs.” DEED will release monthly data for December on Jan. 22 as the jobs numbers reporting schedule returns to normal. The federal government shutdown last fall delayed the release of jobs numbers for the months of September through November. Due to the shutdown, some labor force data was not collected for October, and therefore, over-the-month change from October to November is not available for some parts of this report. As of November, Minnesota gained more than 40,700 jobs over the year, up 1.3%, with the private sector gaining 40,500 of those jobs, up 1.6%. Both rates are faster than the nation’s: overall, national employment grew 0.5% over the year with the private sector up 0.7%. Related Articles Business People: Great Plains Institute’s Rolf Nordstrom to retire next year Working Strategies: Resolutions anymore? anyone? Anyone? Business People: Liliana Letran-Garcia to return to CLUES as CEO Working Strategies: Resolve to create an efficient job search for new year Working Strategies: Books for winter reading   ...read more read less