DEED: St. Cloud Area Lost Nearly 13,000 Jobs

ST. PAUL -- The St. Cloud metro area lost nearly 13,000 jobs in the past year.

The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development says the state as a whole lost nearly 360,000 jobs from April of last year through April of this year.

The new jobless numbers were way below the nearly 700,000 applications for unemployment insurance that Minnesota has received since March 16, when Gov. Tim Walz ordered bars and restaurants to close. Officials say there are several reasons why the numbers don't match. A key reason is that workers can get benefits if their hours have been cut but they're still working. They aren't counted as unemployed in the official rate.

The state's unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent in April up from 2.9 percent in March. Wisconsin's unemployment rate hit 14.1% in April. Iowa's unemployment rate soared to 10.2% in April. The national unemployment rate is at 14.7 percent.

DEED says all subsectors lost jobs in April with the exception of mining which added 100 jobs. By far the largest declines were in Leisure and Hospitality which was down nearly 149,000 jobs.

Employment fell in all of the state's metropolitans areas in April with Duluth-Superior hit the hardest due to their high concentration of hospitality workers, they lost over 21,500 jobs. The Rochester area shed nearly 15,000 jobs mostly in education and health services.

The retail trade dropped 12 percent year over year in the Twin Cities, compared to 7.7 percent in Duluth and 5.9 percent in Rochester.