By Carson Gorecki
October 2020
Textile Mills is a subsector of the Manufacturing industry that involves the "preparation of fibers, weaving of fabric, knitting of fabric, and fiber and fabric finishing", according to the Census Bureau. The primary production of textile fabrics in this subsector is considered separate from the production of goods derived from primary fabrics and fibers such as apparel.
In Minnesota, Textile Mills is the smallest Manufacturing subsector, employing just over 325 people across 11 firms. In the first quarter of 2020 Textile Mills represented 0.1% of statewide Manufacturing jobs. By comparison, the related Textile Product Mills and Apparel Manufacturing subsectors employed 0.7% and 0.2% of Manufacturing workers, respectively. The Textile Mills payroll in the first quarter of 2020 was over $3 million. The average annual wage of $38,428 was 40.1% lower than the average wage for all industries and 46% lower than the Manufacturing annual average.
Within the Textile Mills subsector, 56.4% of employment is in the Fabric Mills industry, and the remaining 43.6% is in the Textile and Fabric Finishing and Fabric Coating Mills industry. The former industry entails more fabrication and manufacturing of textiles and fabrics while the latter primarily deals with the finishing, converting of, and coating fabric goods. Since 2011 Fabric Mills has been the larger of the two industries, adding employees while Textile and Fabric Finishing and Fabric Coating Mills employment remained below 150.
| Table 1. Minnesota Industry Employment Statistics, Qtr. 1 2020 | Avg. Annual Wage | ||||
| NAICS Code | NAICS Industry Title | Number of Firms | Number of Jobs | Quarterly Payroll | |
| 0 | Total, All Industries | 183,518 | 2,854,080 | $45,784,721,190 | $64,116 |
| 31 | Manufacturing | 8,419 | 319,376 | $5,685,503,778 | $71,188 |
| 313 | Textile Mills | 11 | 326 | $3,133,157 | $38,428 |
| 3132 | Fabric Mills | 5 | 184 | $1,878,127 | $40,820 |
| 3133 | Textile and Fabric Finishing and Fabric Coating Mills | 6 | 141 | $1,255,030 | $35,568 |
| Source: DEED Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) | |||||
Textile Mills activity was concentrated in the Twin Cities, with nearly 60% of Textile Mills jobs and 65.8% of Fabric Mills jobs in the Seven County Metro region. Since 2009 the Northwest region was the only other area with reportable Textile Mills employment. In 2018 four firms in Northwest Minnesota averaged 70 employees at. Since 2009 statewide employment in Textile Mills grew just slightly faster than total employment, increasing 13.3% through 2019, with Fabric Mills accounting for most of this increase. During the same period, the Manufacturing sector grew only 7.9%.
According to the DEED Employment Outlook, 2018-2028, the Textile Mills industry is estimated to see a 15.3% decline in employment from 2018-2028. By comparison the Manufacturing sector is expected to shrink by 2.8%.
Transportation Equipment Manufacturing is similar to the Machinery Manufacturing subsector but specialized in the "production of equipment for the purpose of moving people and goods"1. In the first quarter of 2020, the subsector employed 11,291 workers at 230 establishments statewide, accounting for 3.5% of Manufacturing jobs and 3.3% of the sector's quarterly payroll. The average annual wage was slightly below the Manufacturing average, but slightly above the average for all industries (see Table 2).
Transportation Equipment Manufacturing consists of several industries, most notably Motor Vehicle Body, Trailer Manufacturing and Motor Vehicle Parts Manufacturing, and Other Transportation Manufacturing. Those three industries combined to account for 65.7% of subsector employment. Over the past decade Transportation Equipment Manufacturing employment grew 14.5%, despite experiencing a 2% decline since 2014. The Motor Vehicle Manufacturing, Motor Vehicle Body and Trailer Manufacturing, and Aerospace Product and Parts Manufacturing industries bucked the recent trend of decline, expanding 17.8%, 5.2%, and 71.7%, respectively. The Ship and Boat Building industry was the only specialty to experience job losses over both five and 10 years (see Table 2).
| Table 2. Minnesota Transportation Equipment Manufacturing Industry Employment Statistics, 2019 and 2020 | |||||||
| NAICS Code | NAICS Industry Title | Number of Jobs (Q1 2020) | Number of Firms (Q1 2020) | Quarterly Payroll (Q1 2020) | Avg. Annual Wage | Percent Change 2014-2019 | Percent Change 2009-2019 |
| 0 | Total, All Industries | 2,854,080 | 183,518 | $45,784,721,190 | $64,116 | 6.3% | 12.8% |
| 31 | Manufacturing | 319,376 | 8,419 | $5,685,503,778 | $71,188 | 3.9% | 7.9% |
| 336 | Transportation Equipment Manufacturing | 11,291 | 230 | $186,947,016 | $66,196 | -2.0% | 14.5% |
| 3361 | Motor Vehicle Mfg. | 1,362 | 7 | $18,594,068 | $54,600 | 17.8% | -14.6% |
| 3362 | Motor Vehicle Body & Trailer Mfg. | 2,131 | 53 | $26,700,720 | $50,076 | 5.2% | 55.9% |
| 3363 | Motor Vehicle Parts Mfg. | 2,148 | 61 | $30,932,768 | $57,564 | -3.2% | 20.8% |
| 33631 | Motor Vehicle Engine & Engine Parts Mfg. | 505 | 16 | $8,270,422 | $65,468 | -12.6% | -5.6% |
| 33632 | Motor Vehicle Electrical Equipment Mfg. | 139 | 10 | $1,735,277 | $49,920 | 1.4% | -14.5% |
| 33633 | Motor Vehicle Steering Components Mfg. | 172 | 6 | $2,875,468 | $66,820 | 48.5% | 176.9% |
| 33636 | Motor Vehicle Seating & Interior Trim Mfg. | 70 | 4 | $733,150 | $41,860 | NA | NA |
| 33639 | Other Motor Vehicle Parts Mfg. | 446 | 16 | $6,593,442 | $59,124 | -14.6% | 33.4% |
| 3364 | Aerospace Product & Parts Mfg. | 1,378 | 38 | $28,412,059 | $82,472 | 71.7% | NA |
| 3365 | Railroad Rolling Stock Mfg.* | 78 | 3 | $6,904,236 | $88,868 | -12.4% | NA |
| 3366 | Ship & Boat Building* | 1,077 | 20 | $50,404,546 | $46,800 | -21.4% | -7.9% |
| 3369 | Other Transportation Equipment Mfg. | 3,136 | 48 | $68,462,364 | $87,308 | -18.1% | 12.4% |
| *Wage and Employment data from Q1 2019. Source: DEED Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages | |||||||
Between 2018 and 2028 the Transportation Equipment Manufacturing subsector is expected to shrink by nearly 400 jobs, a decline of 3.7%. Despite these forecasts, Motor Vehicle Manufacturing and Motor Vehicle Body and Trailer Manufacturing are both expected to grow more than 4.5%.
Northwest and Central Minnesota combined to account for over 60% of subsector employment while only accounting for only 17.1% of all jobs. Accordingly, their respective location quotients of 4.9 and 2.6 indicated much higher than average concentrations of Transportation Equipment Manufacturing. Northwest Minnesota in particular, is home to several large, institutional employers in the subsector. Northeast and Southwest Minnesota also had higher than average concentrations of employment in the subsector, underlining Transportation Equipment Manufacturing's important role in several regional economies in Greater Minnesota (see Figure 2).
The Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation subsector includes a variety of scheduled and unscheduled passenger activities. As of the first quarter of 2020 this subsector employed 21,365 workers across 621 establishments. Altogether the subsector represented nearly a fifth of Transportation and Warehousing employment. Low average annual wages, however, meant that the Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation subsector accounted for only 10.2% of the Transportation and Warehousing sector's quarterly payroll (see Table 3).
The bulk of the subsector's employment fell under the School and Employee Bus Transportation industry, which employed 13,086 workers in quarter one 2020. The next largest industry was Urban Transit Systems which employed 3,720 workers, followed by Other Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation with 2,718 workers. With only 851 workers, Taxi and Limousine Service was the smallest industry in the subsector. Railroad employment and wages are covered by the industry's own unemployment payroll program so they are not covered by state law, and employment and wage data are not provided to any state.
Despite double-digit employment growth between 2014 and 2019, the Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation subsector lagged the relative increases in the Transportation and Warehousing sector overall and the Total of All Industries. This was largely caused by losses in Taxi Services, which fell 41.3% in the past five years as it faced increased competition from transportation networking companies. The same relative trend can be seen from 2009-2019.
| Table 3. Minnesota Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation Industry Employment Statistics, 2019 and 2020 | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NAICS Code | NAICS Industry Title | Number of Firms (Q1 2020) | Number of Jobs (Q1 2020) | Quarterly Payroll (Q1 2020) | Average Annual Wage | Percent Change 2014-2019 | Percent Change 2009-2019 |
| 0 | Total, All Industries | 183,518 | 2,854,080 | $45,784,721,190 | $64,116 | 9.2% | 13.4% |
| 48 | Transportation and Warehousing | 5,933 | 110,092 | $1,622,587,839 | $58,916 | 16.3% | 16.1% |
| 485 | Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation | 621 | 21,365 | $164,907,164 | $30,836 | 5.4% | 13.1% |
| 4851 | Urban Transit Systems | 34 | 3,720 | $50,736,600 | $54,548 | 2.0% | 42.3% |
| 4853 | Taxi and Limousine Service | 90 | 851 | $4,837,411 | $22,724 | -13.1% | -11.3% |
| 48531 | Taxi Service | 45 | 323 | $1,929,562 | $23,868 | -41.3% | -39.2% |
| 48532 | Limousine Service | 45 | 528 | $2,907,849 | $21,996 | 21.9% | 22.1% |
| 4854 | School and Employee Bus Transportation | 302 | 13,086 | $83,626,085 | $25,532 | 6.7% | 7.8% |
| 4859 | Other Transit & Ground Passenger Transportation | 149 | 2,718 | $18,186,185 | $26,728 | 17.3% | 28.3% |
| Source: DEED Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) | |||||||
The Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation subsector is unique in that it contains a larger than average share of government workers. In the first quarter of 2020 more than one of every five workers was a government employee. The Urban Transit Systems had the highest share of government employees, as public transportation providers such as Metro Transit in the Twin Cities Metro tend to be government-run entities. Similarly, many school districts operate their own buses which likely explains the 18.2% government employee share in the School and Employee Bus Transportation industry (see Figure 3).
One impact of the coronavirus crisis is a large increase in the number of workers working from home. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that as much as 35% of people teleworked at some point because of the pandemic. If even part of this shift in the way work is done remains after the pandemic, Telecommunications is likely to benefit. The Telecommunications subsector consists of the operation, provision or reselling of telephone, television, and internet access and services.
In the first quarter of 2020, 10,682 workers were employed in the Telecommunications subsector, equivalent to over a fifth of all employment in the Information sector. The subsector paid high wages, relative to the Total of All Industries, with an annual average wage of more than $90,000. A change to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) in 2017 meant that the Wired Telecommunications Carriers and Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (except Satellite) industries were recoded into the single Wired and Wireless Telecommunications Carriers industry (5173), which made up 84.9% of subsector employment (see Table 4).
| Table 4. Minnesota Telecommunications Industry Employment Statistics, 2020 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NAICS Code | NAICS Industry Title | Number of Firms | Number of Jobs | Quarterly Payroll | Avg. Annual Wage |
| 0 | Total, All Industries | 183,518 | 2,854,080 | $45,784,721,190 | $64,116 |
| 51 | Information | 4,402 | 48,977 | $1,092,884,391 | $89,232 |
| 517 | Telecommunications | 739 | 10,682 | $241,482,560 | $90,376 |
| 5173 | Wired & Wireless Telecommunications Carriers | 494 | 9,065 | $197,608,803 | $87,152 |
| Source: DEED Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) | |||||
Satellite Telecommunications and Other Telecommunications are the remaining two industries that make up the larger Telecommunications subsector, but neither had a significant employment presence in 2020 (see Figure 4).
From 2009 to 2019 Telecommunications employment shrank 21.8%. Over the same period the Information sector employment declined almost 14%. Before 2017 most of the decline in subsector employment was clearly attributable to losses in Wireless Telecommunications Carriers (except Satellite). Since Wired and Wireless Telecommunications were combined in 2017, the industry mix and individual trends are less clear with the data available. Wired and Wireless Telecommunications declined 16.6% from 2017 to 2019 (see Figure 4). The remaining quarterly QCEW numbers will provide an indication of whether the changing nature of work has had any discernible impact on the Telecommunications subsector, potentially reversing a decade of job loss.
1U.S Census NAICS
