Go North, Young Job Seeker

by Drew Digby - drew.digby@state.mn.us
December 2011

Efforts to attract and keep young adults in the labor force in the Northeast have been solidly underway for more than a decade. These efforts have included the Bridge Syndicate group, the Duluth Young Professional Group of the Chamber of Commerce, the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Office of Civic Engagement, and the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation’s Communities Initiatives Officer position, and resulted in a task force on Attracting and Retaining Young Adults to the region.  However, young people will only remain in the region if good jobs are available for them when they finish their education.

This article explores whether or not young people have been successful in finding jobs in the region during the second half of the last decade. Two datasets are used in this analysis. The first is the Quarterly Workforce Indicators (QWI) from the U.S. Census program called Local Employment Dynamics. This dataset brings together employment data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) with demographic data and home addresses. The other data series is called the American Community Survey (ACS), a nationwide household survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. 

Today there are more young adults in Duluth than there were 10 years ago, and some of them have very good jobs according to DEED and census data. From 2000 until 2010 the median age in Duluth dropped by almost two years to 33.6 years from 35.4 years. Other Census data from the ACS suggests that the drop in age might be even more dramatic as the last American Community Survey data puts the median age at 32.8 years old. That trend was unique within the Northeast region where the median age not only ticked upward, but ticked upward at rates faster than the national average (see Table 1).

More young adults are remaining in the region or returning to the region, but are they finding work in the region? QWI data allows us to determine how many young adults are being hired and how that has changed from five years ago.

First the bad news: Across the state and the region the number of 22-24 year olds who are being reported as “new hires” by companies dropped from 2005 to 2010. For example, in the year ended September 30, 2005, companies across the state hired 55,695 people from the 22-24 year old age group. In the same period in 2009-2010 that number dropped 30 percent to just 39,158. So this age group is fighting for almost one-third fewer positions. It should be noted, however, that  this age group still accounted for approximately 12.2 percent of new hires in 2010, down slightly from 12.3 percent of new hires in 2005, suggesting that economic conditions may not have impacted this age group as significantly as others.   Undoubtedly, the competition for jobs among all age groups increased during the economic recession.

This trend in Northeast Minnesota showed a nearly 40 percent drop in the number of new hires between 2005 and 2010, but a slightly more favorable condition for new hires age 22 to 24. Duluth, most notably, witnessed a 5.5 percent drop in total new hires and a 9.9 percent decline in new hires age 22 to 24 (see Table 2).

 Now the better news: the average earnings for new hires age 22 to 24 increased in both Northeast Minnesota and Duluth for at the year ending September 30, 2005, and September 30, 2010, while average new hire earnings declined by 2.0 percent statewide. In Duluth average earning for all new hires declined over the five years but increased 7.9 percent for new hires age 22 to 24 (see Table 3).

As a whole, the Northeast region has held its own in its ability to employ more young adults. ACS data show that young adult wages are split between those earning wages just above poverty levels and those taking home decent professional salaries. As the economy improves, it will be interesting to see if wages at the lower end improve with it.

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