State Unemployment Rate Drops Slightly

(St. Paul, MN)  --  Minnesota's jobless rate slipped to seven-point-three percent in January, down slightly from seven-point-four percent in December.  Employers added 15-thousand-600 jobs, the largest one-month gain in state employment since April 2005.  Dan McElroy with the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development  says eight of the state's eleven industrial sectors added jobs.  He says he's most excited about an increase of three-thousand jobs in manufacturing and 21-hundred in construction.  Education and health services lost 700 jobs while financial activities lost 500 jobs.