Signs of Minnesota’s tight job market continue to pile on. In addition to the headline unemployment rate, known as the official rate or U-3, Dave Senf looks at three additional measures of labor underutilization to determine whether part-time workers can move from the ranks of underemployed into full-time jobs.

These measures of Minnesota unemployment – U-3, U-4, U-5 and U-6 – after inching down in 2005 and 2006, started to increase in 2007, and then spiked during the recession. Now they’re the lowest on record. Low levels of discouraged, marginally attached, and involuntary part-time employed workers are aligned with low unemployment rates.

Labor underutilization (as measured by alternative unemployment rates) peaked during the first half of 2009 before declining very slowly over the next nine years. The latest estimates, which are an average between the last quarter of 2017 and the first three quarters of 2018, are the lowest on record. The alternative unemployment rates have only been published at the state level since 2003. Future alternative rates are likely to continue to inch downward over the next six months as labor underutilization dives in the face of the state’s tight labor market.

Is this the new normal? Read More Signs of Tightening Job Market in Trends.