Minnesota Labor Market Information 2009 Summary

By Oriane Casale
February 2010

The mission of the Labor Market Information (LMI) Office of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) is to deliver high-quality labor market information to support Minnesota’s businesses, its workforce and economic development system, and the workforce of today and tomorrow. We collect, analyze, and disseminate economic data on Minnesota’s business community, workforce, and job market. We also provide key economic indictors, employment projections, and regional and statewide industry and workforce analysis as well as information to help individuals make informed career decisions. We believe that access to high-quality, up-to-date labor market information is particularly important during an economic downturn like the one we are currently experiencing.

Each year we summarize information on our customers including who you are, what sorts of information you have asked for in the past year, and what your satisfaction level is with our information and services. This process helps us improve our information and services, and we hope that the summary is informative for you as well.

We obtain information on our customers from several sources. We track in a database, your telephone and e-mail requests, we analyze Web statistics from our WebTrends tracking tool, we summarize information from our mailing and e-mail lists, and we analyze customer satisfaction information from DEED’s customer satisfaction telephone survey. We also take the opportunity to update you on new and improved products and services that we provided during the past year. You will find all of this information summarized here for 2009.

LMI Customers and Information Delivery Methods

The LMI Office offers a number of delivery methods for LMI data and information.

LMI Web site:  The vast majority of our customers access information directly from our Web site at www.PositivelyMinnesota.com/lmi . We keep our Web site as up-to-date and complete as possible so customers know they are getting the most current labor market information available for Minnesota. Essentially all releasable data and information that we produce is available on our site.

This year the entire department Web site went through a complete overhaul. Most labor market information that was available on the old site is still available, and more will be available over the coming months. However, customers have had some difficulty finding the information that they are seeking. We hope that we have been helpful in answering your questions and that you will continue to call and e-mail us with your questions.

Analyst Services:  Our telephone (1.888.234.1114 or 651.259.7384) and TTY/TDD (1.800.657.3973 or 651.296.3900) and e-mail (deed.lmi@state.mn.us) Helpline service helps customers find and understand LMI data and information by providing access to analysts. These men and women also provide presentations to a wide range of audiences as well as training sessions primarily geared for workforce and economic development professionals. Consultation services and data extraction and analysis are also available on a fee-for-service basis.

Newsletter Notification:  We have two e-mail lists. Subscribers to the LMI Data and Publications list receive a brief monthly newsletter with Web links to newly available data and information. Subscribers to the LMI Releases for News Media receive a monthly notice of the release of our monthly data. 

We had some downtime for these two lists this year caused by a department-wide switch in software. However, we now seem to be back up and running.

Direct Mailing List:  This list is for customers who want to receive printed copies of publications and brochures.

Table 1 provides a snapshot of customer contacts we made in each category. Overall the LMI Office had more than 2,063,000 customers and made more than 2,916,000 contacts with these customers in 2009. The vast majority of these were Web customers, but a significant minority received LMI services through other means.

We tracked detailed information on 4,800 customers who were in touch with us in 2009 by telephone to request information through the LMI Helpline or a regional analyst or who were on our publication mailing list. One important piece of information that we track through this method is the type of work our customers do. This helps us understand what your information needs are so that we can better shape our information production efforts. Table 2 shows that, based on this source of information, our top four customer groups are the following:

• Private businesses
• Schools, colleges and universities
• Members of the media
• DEED staff

LMI Information

As readers of the Minnesota Employment Review know, the LMI Office produces a range of data and informational products on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. These products include industry and occupational employment and wage data, unemployment data, job openings data, long-term employment projections and short-term employment forecasts, and articles and analysis on a wide range of labor market topics. This section addresses the types of informational products our customers accessed in 2009.

The top LMI Web pages in 2009 by number of visits were the following:

• Employment Outlook Tool, which includes short-term forecasts as well as long-term employment projections
• Salary Survey Data Tool
• Minnesota Employment Review

Table 3 summarizes this information. From our customer satisfaction survey we know that most employers who access labor market information are looking for wage information: Of the 189 employer respondents, 79 percent used the salary survey.

From the customer satisfaction survey we also obtain a picture of how our largest customer group, employers, access LMI. The majority of the 189 respondents obtained LMI via the Internet (66 percent). The next largest group, 10 percent of employers, obtained LMI through publications.

Over the past five years we have moved away from print publications and toward providing our range of products via the Internet. The main reason for this is cost, but this approach also improves timeliness because data and analysis can be made available on our Web site almost instantly upon completion. However, because we know that many of our customers want to be able to manipulate the data or print articles to read at their leisure, we also try to make all material available for download, either in Excel tables if it is purely data or in PDF format if it involves text reading. Evidence suggests that our customers value this download option with more than 57,000 downloads in 2009.

LMI Customer Satisfaction

Each year we look closely at the customer satisfaction results from DEED’s Customer Satisfaction Survey. This year 207 respondents gave feedback on LMI. Table 4 summarizes their responses.

These results demonstrate that about 90 percent of LMI customers are either satisfied or very satisfied with LMI products and services. Based on these results, the LMI Office plans to work at improving staff response time during 2010.

2009 Accomplishments

We have several noteworthy accomplishments to report for 2009.

New Research Opportunity: We received notification in November that we received a $1.16 million grant award from the Department of Labor to conduct research into green job vacancies in Minnesota. Over the next 18 months we will be producing detailed information and data on the following:

• The number of green job vacancies
• The industries and occupations of these vacancies
• The wages employers are offering for these green vacancies
• The skills necessary to accomplish the work successfully
• Whether or not there are measurable skill gaps in the labor force that may make it difficult for employers to fill these vacancies successfully

All of this information will be available on the LMI Web site and much will also be incorporated into the iSeek.org career information Web site for career explorers of all ages. Updates on progress and results will be provided regularly through Trends and Review.

Minnesota Economic Trends: We made a successful transition to a quarterly publication schedule for our Trends publication. This was the result of a Kaizen event in February 2009 in which we rethought process, responsibilities, and schedule.

JobSTAT: We successfully launched a new career exploration tool that can be found at www.PositivelyMinnesota.com/apps/lmi/ota/OccupationSelectA.aspx . This tool provides the ability to  describe one’s marketable skill attributes easily and match those against existing job openings that require similar skills.

New DEED Web site: We transitioned to the new DEED Web site, which can be accessed at www.PositivelyMinnesota.com . This transition meant a complete overhaul of our LMI Web presence. Some of our material, specifically back issues of Trends and Review, are not yet available. New software will be implemented that will allow us to provide these issues in a searchable archive format. In the meantime we can assist you in accessing back issues electronically or in paper form. Please contact us if you are unable to find the information you seek.

We always welcome comments and feedback on our products and services. Go to www.PositivelyMinnesota.com/lmi to find your preferred method of contact.

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