Year: 2021

By Marnie Werner, VP, Research & Operations Ready for a silver lining? So much of what we hear about the pandemic is doom and gloom, but as a new report we released last month on workforce and job vacancies showed, rural Minnesota is sitting at the crossroads of two important trends that have created a ...

EXCERPT: “The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) has announced awards of $4.6 million in Convention Center Relief Grants and $8.54 million in Movie Theater Relief Grants to facilities across the state. These grants were part of a $216 million economic relief package signed into law by Governor Tim Walz on Dec. 16, 2020. ...

EXCERPT: “Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, children in parts of Minnesota without high-speed internet have struggled to log on to remote classes, while businesses and employees who lack broadband have strained to connect to customers and co-workers. As Neel Kashkari, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, told Minnesota lawmakers last week: ‘We knew (broadband) was ...

EXCERPT: “Having been rocked by the coronavirus pandemic, cities in Greater Minnesota are calling on the state Legislature to offer them a lifeline and bolster programs that could help speed up economic recovery across the state. In a Friday, Jan. 29, news conference, the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities (CGMC) announced its legislative priorities for ...

EXCERPT: “The Greater Minnesota Partnership has selected Scott McMahon to serve as the nonprofit’s new executive director. McMahon is a former lobbyist with government relations firm Flaherty & Hood P.A., and has been with the GMNP since 2017, according to a news release from GMNP. He will lead the organization in its goal of advocating ...

January, 2021 By Kelly Asche, Research Associate Last week the Center released a new report on the state of rural Minnesota’s workforce. In 2019, we assembled a four-part series on rural Minnesota’s worker shortage, it’s impact on economic growth in Greater Minnesota, and what rural communities are doing about the problem. Now, almost a year into the ...

EXCERPT: “Area lawmakers say broadband funding will be a crucial issue in this year’s legislative session, but no one is certain just how much the state will spend. COVID-related regulations and lockdown efforts exacerbated Greater Minnesota’s need for better internet access over the past year, giving urgency to the Capitol’s annual debate over broadband infrastructure. ...

  As the state begins the work of recovering economically from the pandemic, this historic event has left rural Minnesota with a unique opportunity: a large pool of unemployed workers and a large number of jobs that need filling. In this webinar from January 21, 2021 The Center for Rural Policy & Development presented their ...

EXCERPT: “Unemployment rates have risen in rural Minnesota due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they mask a bigger challenge. A decade-long worker shortage continues to persist in many industries in rural Minnesota, according to new research conducted for the Center for Rural Policy and Development by Kelly Asche and Marnie Werner. Asche presented the findings ...