Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington
at the margin.

The Twin Cities labor market is gaining momentum, though the most recent data points to a market that is beginning to lose steam at the edges. Total nonfarm employment in the Minneapolis–St. Paul–Bloomington metro stood at 2.00 million workers in December 2025, up 0.55% year-over-year. That growth rate edged down to 0.45% by December 2025 from 0.55% in October 2025. The unemployment rate reached 4.0% in December 2025, up 0.4 percentage points from September 2025.

In this metro, a 4.0% unemployment rate is elevated by local standards. The Twin Cities structurally runs 1 to 1.5 points below the national average. The national unemployment rate stood at 4.4% in December 2025, so the metro's traditional cushion is narrowing. The civilian labor force reached 2,090,501 workers in December 2025, rising 0.89% year-over-year — faster than payroll growth of 0.55% over the same period. When labor force participation expands faster than employment, rising unemployment typically reflects new entrants rather than layoffs. The December comparison also crosses the seasonal window when construction employment softens — the November-through-March suppression of construction payrolls can modestly inflate the unemployment rate without signaling broad deterioration. Two years prior, in December 2023, total nonfarm employment was 1,974.4 thousand workers, confirming that the metro has added meaningful headcount over that span.

For manufacturing executives making near-term workforce decisions: the combination of a rising unemployment rate and an expanding labor force suggests that available workers are entering the market. This is one of the better windows in recent years to recruit for skilled production roles in medical device assembly and food processing without facing the acute competition that defined 2022 and 2023. Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers are running 3.84% year-over-year as of early 2026, so compensation benchmarks should be set accordingly — but the hiring environment itself is more favorable than it has been in several years.