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6/6/2016 2:23:55 PM
Tim O'Neill
Recent blog posts for the Twin Cities Metro Area have looked at how the population is becoming more diverse over time:
This month’s post will zoom in on diversity in the workforce.
Through 2014, the Twin Cities’ workforce was the most diverse of the six regions in the state. Accounting for both race and Hispanic or Latino origin, about one-in-five metro area jobs (18.0 percent) were held by minorities. That was about twice as racially diverse as any other region. Outside the metro, the percentage of jobs held by minorities ranged from 6.8 percent in Northeast Minnesota, to 9.8 percent in Southeast Minnesota (Table 1).
Moving to the latest data available from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) program, the Twin Cities had just over 1.7 million jobs during the third quarter of 2015. The distribution of jobs broken down by race and ethnicity are nearly identical to annual 2014 data, but with a continued increase in the number of jobs held by minorities (Table 2).
Over the past decade – between the third quarters of 2005 and 2015 – the total number of jobs in the Twin Cities increased by 72,090, or 4.4 percent. During that time, the number of jobs held by white workers increased by 1.1 percent, which was equivalent to nearly 16,000 jobs. All other racial and ethnic groups witnessed much faster growth. For example, the number of jobs held by black or African-American workers increased by 27.4 percent, which was equivalent to just over 27,000 jobs.
The rapid diversification of the Twin Cities’ workforce strongly follows the same patterns for the changes in its overall population. Future blog posts will continue to study these trends across Minnesota.
Contact Tim O'Neill at 651-259-7401.
