The Ins and Outs of the Region
by Brent Pearson and Cameron Macht
January 2011
Workforce Mobility
A recent marketing campaign broadcast on radio in southern Minnesota targets Minnesota residents, enticing them to move to South Dakota for its plentiful jobs and open spaces. South Dakota’s unemployment rate is comparatively low — it hovered between 4.4 and 4.8 percent throughout 2010, as compared to about 7.5 percent in Minnesota and 9.5 percent nationwide 1]— so it raises a key question for southwestern and south central Minnesotans: Just how great an impact do neighboring states like South Dakota and Iowa have on the region’s workforce?
To get a better idea of the interaction between states, this article looks at data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s labor shed analysis website, aptly called OnTheMap, which allows users to calculate commuting patterns[2]This tool provides data to help determine where workers live who are employed in a given area. The data can also help quantify the number of Minnesota workers commuting across state lines for employment in Iowa and South Dakota and vice versa.
Through 2008 approximately 51.7 percent of primary jobs in the nine-county south central Minnesota region — Economic Development Region (EDR) 9 — were held by workers who both live and work in their home counties (see Map 1). The five counties in EDR 6W had the highest resident-retention percentage at 60.1 percent. Meanwhile, the nine counties in southwest Minnesota (EDR 8) retained approximately 57.7 percent of their workers for local jobs (see Table 1).
Labor Sheds
A labor shed is the area from which local employers draw their workers. Each county has businesses that provide jobs for workers, some of whom live in the same county while others drive in from surrounding counties or states. Census data show that border counties in the region have a greater pull of workers from both Iowa and South Dakota.
The heaviest in-flows of workers from South Dakota occur in the border counties of Big Stone, Lac Qui Parle, Yellow Medicine, Lincoln, Pipestone, and Rock. The strongest pull from Iowa is felt in Rock, Nobles, Jackson, Martin, and Faribault counties. What may be surprising, however, is that those counties also have extremely high percentages of retaining primary jobs of residents within their borders. In each case the majority of workers in those counties are homegrown (see Table 1).
Commute Sheds
In contrast, a commute shed indicates the workplace of county residents. Until gas prices climbed to unprecedented highs, workers were showing an increasing amount of mobility throughout the region. While the majority of residents in the region still commute to jobs within the counties in which they reside, many other people live in one place and work somewhere else.
For example, the region’s lone Metropolitan Statistical Area is comprised of two cities (Mankato and North Mankato) in two different counties that border one another. As a result, Mankato (located in Blue Earth County) — with a higher population, larger workforce, and more jobs at more employers — pulls workers from Nicollet County.
Sibley County borders the seven-county Twin Cities metro area, creating a different issue: It has significant numbers of commuters traveling into nearby Hennepin, Scott, and Carver counties for work. Located between two employment centers, Waseca County is split down the middle, with residents in western towns commuting toward Mankato/North Mankato and other residents heading east to Owatonna. Murray County has a similar situation with Marshall to the north and Worthington to the south.
Again, the data indicate a stronger tendency for residents in border counties to commute into neighboring states. Nearly one-fourth of the workers living in Rock County, which shares a border and an Interstate Highway with the Sioux Falls metropolitan area, were driving into South Dakota. Likewise, about 1-in-10 workers in Pipestone and Lincoln counties were commuting for jobs in South Dakota, while 1-in-12 workers in Jackson County was crossing into Iowa. Nobles, Martin, and Faribault also had larger numbers of residents who crossed state lines to go to work (see Table 2).
A Healthy Dose of Outside Influence
While workers flow in and out of the region, businesses from outside the region also are streaming in. Nowhere is this more evident than in the health care and social assistance industry, which was the largest employing industry in the region in the first quarter of 2010. With 29,776 jobs at 910 employer establishments, health care and social assistance now comprises 18 percent of total employment in the southwest Minnesota planning region (see Map 2).
Despite the recession, health care and social assistance has been adding jobs in the region. Between the first quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2010 health care and social assistance gained 835 net new jobs, a 2.9 percent increase. During that same timeframe, however, there were 10 fewer health care and social assistance establishments as the region’s providers continued to consolidate.
Over time the largest health care employers inside the region have become part of larger health care networks with corporate headquarters outside the region. For example, Immanuel St. Joseph’s Hospital and Clinics in Mankato is a part of the Mayo Health System which is headquartered in Rochester. Two other major health services providers in the region are headquartered in Sioux Falls, S.D.: Avera has made major inroads in southwest Minnesota, including the Avera Marshall Regional Medical Center, but the health system with the largest number of locations in the region is Sanford Health.
According to Sanford Health’s [3] the health care system now has 58 locations in the southwest Minnesota planning region, ranging from the cities of Adrian, Balaton, and Canby to Walnut Grove and Westbrook. These locations include clinics, dental offices, dialysis services, emergency services, home health care, home medical equipment, hospice, hospitals, mental health services, nursing homes, and other health care and social assistance offerings.
Avera’s [4] lists 32 locations in southwest Minnesota, including Dawson, Edgerton, and Fulda as well as Slayton, Springfield, and Tyler. Likewise, their services range from head to toe: from optometry and psychiatry to ankle and foot care. Interestingly, some larger cities, such as Jackson, Luverne, Windom, and Worthington, have both Sanford and Avera locations.
Meanwhile, the Mayo Health [5] has expanded in from the other side of the region, operating 27 locations in the 23-county planning region. These offices reside in cities ranging from Alden to Wells. Affiliated Community Medical [6], which is headquartered in Willmar, has four clinics in the northern part of the region.
But hospitals and clinics are not the only sector of health care that has seen encroachment from outside sources. The Good Samaritan Society, which runs nursing homes and residential care facilities in 13 communities in the region, is headquartered in Sioux Falls[]. REM Minnesota8], which is based in Edina, has five locations in southwest Minnesota. Golden Living Center 9], which is headquartered in Arkansas, has care locations in four different cities.
Long-term Mobility
Job mobility has allowed people to choose one place to live and another to work, sometimes across county or state lines. For many workers in southwest and south central Minnesota, the job opportunities on the other side of the border are attractive enough for them to make the commute each day. Likewise, some employers in Minnesota draw workers from South Dakota and Iowa for their positions, supplementing the local workforce.
As the region recovers from the recession and tight labor markets likely return, the interaction with neighboring states will certainly grow in importance. In either direction, it appears that the flow of people and businesses throughout the region has led to increased competitiveness, both for jobs and for workers. Simply put, commuting keeps the region moving forward.
1]United States Department of Labor: Bureau of Labor Statistics. www.bls.gov/web/laus/lauhsthl.htm
[2]U.S. Census Bureau: LED OnTheMap Version 4. http://lehdmap4.did.census.gov/themap4/
[3]Sanford Health: Find a Location. www.sanfordhealth.org/Locations/Search
[4]Avera: Find a Location. www.avera.org/locations/index.aspx
[5]Mayo Health System: Locations. www.mayohealthsystem.org/mhs/live/page.cfm?pp=locations/affiliates.cfm&nav=Aff&OrgID=ISJ
[6]ACMC: Clinic Addresses and Phone Numbers. www.acmc.com/contact/clinicAddresses.cfm
[7]Good Samaritan Society: Locations. www.good-sam.com/index.php/locations/
[8]REM Minnesota: Locations. www.remminnesota.com/forward/locations_results.aspx
[9]Golden Living Centers: By State. www.goldenlivingcenters.com/locations-staff/centers-by-state.aspx
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