Monthly Unemployment Rate

Minnesota's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for July rose a half of a percentage point to 5.8 percent.  This was driven by an increase of 16,800 in the number of unemployed since June.  

The national unemployment rate rose two-tenths of a percentage point to 5.7 percent in July. 

Nonfarm Jobs

Minnesota's over the year job change slipped into negative territory in July as the state's employment level was 900 jobs below July 2007. This is the first time since March 2004 that the yearly job change has been negative.  Six of 11 industry sectors had over the year job losses: Natural Resources & Mining, Construction, Manufacturing, Information, Professional & Business Services and Other Services.  Five sectors in Minnesota are performing better than the nation over-the-year: Construction; Manufacturing; Trade, Transportation & Utilities; Information and Financial Activities.

Nationally, annual job losses mounted further during the month, and now stand at 174,000 compared to the previous July.

Industrial Sector Highlights

Minnesota's nonfarm economy lost 8,600 jobs in July, down 0.3 percent over the month on a seasonally adjusted basis.  Moreover, June's gains were adjusted downward by 2,100 jobs.  Six of 11 major industry sectors lost jobs during the month.  

The largest monthly declines occurred in Government, Construction and Manufacturing.  In Government, both state and local government education showed losses.  Construction fell by 3,400 jobs with losses continuing to mount in residential construction.  Manufacturing was weak across most areas, with wood products and printing among the weakest areas.  On the other hand, medical devices industries continue to buck the overall trend with continued over the year growth.

In other industries with job losses in July, Leisure & Hospitality continues to struggle, this month with losses in fast food.  Professional & Business Services continues to be dragged down by the temp help sector, which turned negative a year ago and continues to decline.

Education & Health Services added the most jobs in July, up 2,500 with strength in educational services and social assistance.  Trade, Transportation & Utilities also added jobs, primarily in retail trade but also in wholesale trade.

Financial Services continues to be a relatively bright spot in Minnesota's economy.  In Minnesota, employment in this industry is up 0.7 percent over the year while it is down 1.4 percent nationwide. 

Unemployment Insurance (UI) Claims

During July, Minnesota's statewide initial claims were up by 2,605 or 13.6 percent over one year ago, at 21,763.  The largest increases over the year were in the Retail Trade and Administrative & Waste Services industries.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, claims dropped slightly to 25,362 from 25,527.

Job Vacancies

Job vacancies fell 9.2 percent from one year ago, to 50,600, during fourth quarter 2007.  Over the year declines were largest in sales and related, office and administrative support and food preparation and serving occupations.  The largest increase in job vacancies was in transportation and material moving, and installation, maintenance and repair, and community and social service occupations.

The strongest demand for workers based on the hiring demand index and the number of vacancies was found in computer and mathematical, healthcare practitioners and technical, healthcare support, and architecture and engineering occupations.

About 30,400 open positions, or 60 percent, were located in the Twin Cities seven-county metro area. The remaining 20,200 job vacancies were in Greater Minnesota.

Overall, we estimate that there were 2.5 unemployed workers for each job vacancy statewide.  One year ago, there were approximately 2.0 unemployed people for each vacancy statewide.

Do you consider yourself a good or great recruiter? How do you measure your success without knowing first where you stand? This presentation is focused on measuring your recruiting skills, how to acquire top talent research skills, and how to incorporate a new approach in how you hire critical talent.

I read "Hiring Secrets of the NFL" for the first time about a month ago and I've picked it up several times since to recapture the author's unique perspective on top talent selection .   I recommend it strongly for recruiters and everyone else interested in creating exceptional teams.

State Manufactured Exports Surge to

record $16.2 Billion

St. Paul – Minnesota’s manufactured exports soared to a record $16.2 billion in 2007, growing by nearly $1 billion or 6.5 percent over the previous year, according to figures released today by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

With the exception of computers and electronics, all major manufacturing sectors in the state increased exports during the year – many of them to record levels. Computers and electronics, while declining by nearly 9 percent last year, remains Minnesota’s largest export category, accounting for $4 billion or about one-fourth of the state’s sales in 2007.

Among all states, Minnesota ranked 20th in 2007 in sales of manufactured goods to foreign countries.

“Manufactured exports are crucial to the health of Minnesota’s economy,” said DEED Commissioner Dan McElroy. “They are responsible for nearly 127,000 jobs in the state, including industries such as transportation and logistics that are key sectors in delivering products to export markets.”

Canada remains the state’s largest export partner, accounting for more than $4.3 billion in sales last year, a 21 percent increase from the previous year. Rounding out the top five were China, including Hong Kong ($1.13 billion), Ireland ($1.11 billion), Japan ($786 million) and Germany ($769 million).

Russia made the biggest leap among the state’s export markets, jumping from 38th in 2006 to 18th last year, spending $217 million for Minnesota manufactured products.
 
Russia, which increased its Minnesota exports by $185 million, was one of four countries that expanded spending for state products by at least $100 million in 2007. The others were Canada (up $752 million), the Philippines (up $127 million) and Germany (up $100 million).

“Minnesota has diverse and growing markets around the world,” said Tony Lorusso, executive director of the Minnesota Trade Office, the state’s official export promotion agency. “While 30 percent of our exports are sold in North America, another 30 percent are purchased by European Union countries and 26 percent go to Asia.”

After computers and electronics, the state’s other major export categories were machinery (valued at $2.6 billion), transportation equipment ($2.2 billion), miscellaneous products including medical devices ($2.1 billion) and food products ($1.2 billion).

Transportation equipment grew the most of any category, increasing $374 million.

The most common method for exporting state products was by airplane, accounting for 46 percent of manufactured goods by value, followed by road and rail (32 percent) and ship (22 percent).

Texas led all states in manufactured exports last year, racking up $158.1 billion in sales (15.5 percent of the U.S. market), followed by California ($118.7 billion) and Washington ($57.3 billion). Overall U.S. manufactured exports climbed 10.4 percent in 2007 to about $1 trillion.

A more detailed export report is available online at www.exportminnesota.com/itradestats.htm.

Communications Office   ·  651/259-7161 or 1-800-657-3858  TTY 1-800-657-3973  ·  Fax 651/215-3841
www.PositivelyMinnesota.com

Google Search Tips:

Use search engines to gather intelligence about a company and individuals before placing your call.

The following uses a GE Modular Systems as the company for which intelligence is being sought.  So you have decided you want to sell to GE Modular Systems. Let’s begin the process of finding out everything we can from Google about GMS. 

First, let’s find some recently published articles on GE. GE Modular Systems/news  

Now let’s look for names and contact information within GMS. This is useful if you need to find the name of a person, a person’s name from a position title, or a phone number for a person in the company. Keep in mind that the information has to be in the domain (web site) for Google to be able to find it. First we will find a person’s name by title. Enter in POSITION TITLE site: domain.com. For example: CFO ge.com (Note: on a site this large you may have to add more qualifying terms such as CFO “Press Release” site:ge.com.)  

Next we will find out what we can about that person from information on the site. Type in: “Name of Person” site:domain.com, for example: “Keith Sherin” site:ge.com  

Now, if we haven’t found it yet, we can look for contact information for the person within the site. Type, contact + “Name of Person” site:domain.com, for example: contact + “Keith Sherin” site:ge.com  Advanced Searching 

You need to know a little more about the web to use these, and, you may come up empty. But, you won’t hurt anything if you try them. 

See if they have a phone directory online: inurl:phone insite:ge.com Or try, intitle:phone insite:ge.com We are looking for the word “phone” in the URL (inurl) or the title of a web page (intitle).  

While Google does not support full Wild Cards, it does support a Wild Card pair within quotes: “Director of *” site:ge.com This search would return all the directors listed on the site. And “John *” site:ge.com would return all the John somebody’s within the site. This search is very handy if you know the last name, but not the first name. Once you have a list of names, add another qualifier such as department.  

Not For the Novice 
Often companies hide information from the public in what is called a sub domain. Here is an easy way to see what sub domains are under a domain: in url:“*.domain.com” For example: in url:“*.ge.com” Notice the use of the Wild Card within quotes. This would produce a list of sub domains that can be searched using the steps above.  

You can use Google to obtain "blind" phone numbers/fax machines and tie them back to company. Search Google using this string “000-0000”(add area code without quotes or parenthesis).  

Also, webmasters sometimes use non-linked information in their URL addresses such as: anycomapny.com/phonedirectory …or any derivations such as “phone,” “address,” “phonebook,” “homenumber,” etc. Only the folks who are in the company know it is there, but a wiley person can sometimes get in and obtain the information.

WEBOPEDIA - www.webopedia.com

The only online dictionary and search engine you need for computer and Internet technology definitions.

WIKIPEDIA - www.wikipedia.com

Wikipedia (IPA: /ˌwiːkiˈpiːdiə/ or /ˌwɪkiˈpiːdiə/) is a multilingual, web-based, free content encyclopedia project. The name Wikipedia is a portmanteau of the words wiki (a type of collaborative website) and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links to guide the user to related pages with additional information.

Wikipedia is written collaboratively by volunteers from all around the world. Since its creation in 2001, Wikipedia has grown rapidly into one of the largest reference Web sites. There are more than 75,000 active contributors working on some 9,000,000 articles in more than 250 languages. As of today, there are 2,092,572 articles in English; every day hundreds of thousands of visitors from around the world make tens of thousands of edits and create thousands of new articles to enhance the knowledge held by the Wikipedia encyclopedia. (See also: Wikipedia:Statistics).

Visitors do not need specialised qualifications to contribute, since their primary role is to write articles that cover existing knowledge; this means that people of all ages and cultural and social background can write Wikipedia articles. With rare exceptions, articles can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet, simply by clicking the edit this page link. Anyone is welcome to add information, cross-references or citations, as long as they do so within Wikipedia's editing policies and to an appropriate standard. For example, if you add information to an article, be sure to include your references, as unreferenced facts are subject to removal.

There is no need to worry about accidentally damaging Wikipedia when adding or improving information, as other editors are always around to advise or correct obvious errors, and Wikipedia's software, known as MediaWiki, is carefully designed to allow easy reversal of editorial mistakes.

Because Wikipedia is an ongoing work to which, in principle, anybody can contribute, it differs from a paper-based reference source in important ways. In particular, older articles tend to be more comprehensive and balanced, while newer articles more frequently contain significant misinformation, unencyclopedic content, or vandalism. Users need to be aware of this to obtain valid information and avoid misinformation that has been recently added and not yet removed (see Researching with Wikipedia for more details). However, unlike a paper reference source, Wikipedia is continually updated, with the creation or updating of articles on topical events within seconds, minutes or hours, rather than months or years for printed encyclopedias.

If you have not done so, we invite you to take a few moments to read What Wikipedia is (and is not), so that you have an understanding of how to consult or contribute to Wikipedia. Further information on key topics appears below. If you cannot find what you are looking for, try the Frequently Asked Questions or see Where to ask questions. For help with editing and other issues, see Help:Contents.

facebook - www.facebook.com

Fastest growing social networking site on the net.  (Approx
upload photos or publish notes • get the latest news from your friends • post videos on your profile • tag your friends • use privacy settings to control who sees your info • join a network to see people who live, study, or work around you. 

LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com 

Networking is the name of the game.  Are you LinkedIn?  This free tool allows you to network with people you know and those you don't.   Expand your network with each new contact.  LinkedIn has job postings available also. 
 

Spoke - www.spoke.com

Business Leads | Sales Leads | Lead Generation | Business Directory | Find People | Contact Business People | Professional Networking | Business List Generation | Corporate Information | Recruiting | B2B Contact Information | Business Information | Fortune 500

Spoke provides online business-to-business contact information designed specifically to help individuals and organizations find people at their target accounts. Spoke's business directory and detailed contact information allows users to identify prospects, conduct company research and access the right people at all levels of an organization. Information on over 40 million people across more than 2.3 million companies gives marketers, sales people and recruiters the contact information they need to penetrate target accounts, including business email address, postal address, phone number, title, and job history. Spoke puts you in control of lead generation and sales prospecting by allowing you to search our extensive database and generate business lists like never before.