Chanhassen, located in Carver County, is poised to see an increase in manufacturing jobs over the next three years.

Emerson, a global technology and engineering company, plans to invest $15 million to renovate its Chanhassen manufacturing facility to increase production capacity of its Rosemount measurement and analytical equipment. The growth of Emerson is tied to the adoption of wireless and pervasive sensing applications that enable the Industrial Internet of Things programs – IoT – which are transforming global industrial facilities around the world.

The plan is to convert 30,000 square feet of offices into manufacturing space at the facility. Emerson expects to hire 80 new manufacturing and manufacturing support jobs over the next three years, paying salaries that average $27.02 an hour. DEED is supporting the project with an $850,000 grant from the Job Creation Fund and a $450,000 forgivable loan from the Minnesota Investment Fund.

According to a recent Review article, Carver County was once populated by German and Swedish immigrants who settled in the area as crop or dairy farmers. Today farming is no longer as prominent in Carver County as it once was. Manufacturing has remained the leading industry in terms of employment in the last 15 years. In 2016 manufacturing employed 24.2 percent of the total workforce and is expected to remain the largest industry.

In fact, manufacturing in the metro area is the second largest employing industry and has only continued to grow since the Great Recession officially ended in June, 2010. Manufacturing payroll surpassed $12.6 billion in 2016, accounting for 12.2 percent of total payroll in the Twin Cities. Average annual wages in manufacturing were $74,478 in 2016 – about $13,600 and 22.4 percent higher than average annual wages across the total of all industries. 2017 Manufacturing Highlights

What Manufacturing Occupations are in Demand?

Using DEED’s Occupations in Demand tool (updated in July 2017) you’ll find many manufacturing occupations offer excellent wages. CNC operators, for example, earned a median hourly wage of $22.34, and were projected to have 1,230 total openings in the region through 2024. As a side note, job seekers can use DEED's Career and Education Explorer tool to research any production occupation and apply for jobs.

What kinds of jobs would Emerson be hiring for? While it’s not possible to say for sure, here are the 10 most common jobs in the navigational, measuring, electromedical, and control instruments manufacturing sub-sector, according to the BLS industry-occupation matrix.

• Electrical and electronic equipment assemblers
  
• Software developers, systems software
  
• Team assemblers
  
• Industrial engineers
  
• Electrical engineers
  
• Mechanical engineers
  
• Inspectors, testers, sorters, samplers, and weighers
  
• Software developers, applications
  
• Architectural and engineering managers
  
• Electronics engineers, except computers
  

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