Tag: workforce

Our most recent research highlighted the importance career and technical education played in the Southwest’s region’s labor force. On this episode, Kelly Asche (Senior Researcher) chats with Eriann Faris, the Career and Technical Education Program Coordinator for Southwest West Central Services Cooperative and leads the Launching Your Future Today (LYFT) initiative. Eriann explains how LYFT ...

The data show that the choices students make in high school and that paths they take after high school can predictably guide them to specific states of meaningful workforce participation later on. November 2023 By Kelly Asche, Senior Researcher | Marnie Werner, VP of Research & Operations For a print version of this report, click ...

By Marnie Werner Vice President of Research Click for a printable version of this report. According to a Star Tribune article in January 2022, “For the broader Midwest, inflation was 7.5% in December, far above the 5.9% rate in the more heavily populated northeastern states.” Inflation wasn’t even consistent around the state: “Rochester; St. Cloud; ...

The Center for Rural Policy and Development partnered with Sourcewell to produce short videos discussing our most recent research. In Part 3, Kelly Asche discusses the historically low unemployment rates as well as the drop in the number of people participating in the labor force during the pandemic, and how this has impacted job vacancies.

Northern Minnesota saw significant declines in employment in the leisure and hospitality industry   By Kelly Asche, Senior Researcher January 2023 Every year the Center for Rural Policy and Development publishes the “State of Rural Minnesota,” a report outlining the demographic and economic trends in Minnesota using the most recent data available. Typically, the report ...

by Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research Earlier this week I spoke to a group of business owners and childcare professionals in St. Cloud, where it’s not breaking news to them—or anyone else for that matter—that childcare’s 20-year downward spiral is now a major factor exacerbating the growing worker shortage.  As the pandemic upended all aspects ...

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations Click here to read the main article, “Rural Child Care Solutions: From the Ground Up.” While communities have been learning how to get together and figure out solutions for their local child care needs, at the state level, the MN Department of Human Services has also been ...

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations Click here to read the main article, “Rural Child Care Solutions: From the Ground Up.” One factor that has been helpful in the rural childcare arena is the involvement of organizations with a regional perspective, operating in a wider area than a county but more focused—with greater ...

By Marnie Werner, Vice President, Research & Operations Click here for a printable version of this report. For a quick summary of this report, click here. Click here for more on what the MN Department of Human Services is doing to help with the child care shortage. Click here for more on the value of ...