Why is this goal important?
Jobs – particularly high-quality jobs – drive Minnesota’s economy by providing Minnesotans with wage income and creating the tax base to preserve the state’s high quality of life. The goal of DEED’s business development efforts is the creation and retention of high-quality jobs for Minnesotans. This goal is at the heart of DEED’s overall mission of promoting economic growth and the Governor’s goal of increasing jobs and economic opportunities.

A key strategy of this goal is DEED’s work helping Minnesota businesses enter and expand export markets. Businesses are learning that international customers are their fastest-growing markets. One in six Minnesota manufacturing jobs is export-related. On average, companies that export are more productive, offer higher wages and more benefits, and experience greater job growth than non-exporters.

What is DEED doing to achieve this goal?
To attract and maintain the state’s economic vitality, DEED focuses on three aspects of business growth: creation, expansion, and relocation from other states.
 
DEED supports business creation through the Small Business Assistance Office and the nine Small Business Development Centers, which provide more than 40,000 hours of one-on-one counseling to over 3,000 business clients each year. DEED also works on ensuring a business-friendly climate for new and existing businesses through initiatives such as a new partnership with the Pollution Control Agency to streamline the environmental permitting process.

DEED’s business development specialists support business expansion by connecting businesses with DEED resources. DEED can provide assistance ranging from financial support for business expansion through programs like the Minnesota Investment Fund to matching financial support for job training through the Minnesota Job Skills Partnership. Each year, DEED provides millions of dollars in loans and grants to businesses and communities to support job creation and retention.

DEED conducts a variety of marketing efforts to encourage businesses to locate or relocate in Minnesota. DEED staff visit over 1,000 companies a year, both responding to inquiries and making initial contacts. DEED’s “Positively Minnesota” marketing campaign promotes the state as a place for business expansion to existing and out-of-state companies. The Job Opportunity Building Zones (JOBZs) are assisting DEED in promoting business expansion and relocation by reducing the tax burden in select locations across the state.

 Community development programs support all of these efforts by ensuring that Minnesota’s communities – particularly in Greater Minnesota – have the infrastructure to support business development. Specific community development activities include grants and loans for brownfield cleanup, redevelopment, and public facilities (such as sewer and water systems).

The Minnesota Trade Office provides individualized export counseling and technical assistance, export education programs, promotional events, and market research resources to assist Minnesota businesses in successfully competing in the global marketplace. While continuing to build on its strengths in Minnesota’s top export markets and industries, DEED is placing new emphasis on responding to emerging export opportunities, expanding export education and outreach throughout the state, and building new alliances to enhance service delivery. DEED will continue to organize trade missions and study tours to facilitate more Minnesota businesses desiring to explore foreign market opportunities.

How is DEED doing?
Compared to the nation, the Minnesota economy is doing well, with the state unemployment more than a full percentage point below the national rate (see the current unemployment rate ). In recent months, DEED has had a role in a number of high-profile Minnesota business expansions, including Arctic Cat, Suzlon, Federal-Mogul, and Menards distribution. Through July 2006, 254 businesses have agreed to locate in JOBZs, create more than 3,800 jobs and invest nearly $300 million in private investment. DEED initiatives are continuing to support business creation, attraction, and expansion efforts in Minnesota; without DEED’s efforts, many of these jobs are likely to have ended up elsewhere outside of Minnesota.

For more information on:
● JOBZ (http://www.deed.state.mn.us/bizdev/jobz.htm)
● DEED (http://www.deed.state.mn.us)
● Exports (http://www.exportminnesota.com/)
 

Why is this goal important?
In survey after survey, businesses report that one of their top challenges is finding the qualified workers they need. People with jobs can be economically self-sufficient and independent of public assistance (such as welfare or unemployment insurance). Reducing the duration of unemployment, i.e., accelerating how quickly unemployed persons find new jobs, also reduces the unemployment insurance tax burden on businesses. Through over 40 Minnesota WorkForce Centers across the state, DEED acts as a catalyst that connects businesses with the job seekers they need. 
 

What is DEED doing to achieve this goal?
DEED provides a variety of tools and services to help businesses better manage their labor force. Through Minnesota’s Job Bank, businesses can post vacant positions and search for qualified job candidates. DEED also provides businesses with labor market information, human resource assistance, employment law information, federal tax credits for hiring welfare recipients and persons with disabilities, and Job Fairs to help with business hiring activities.

WorkForce Center staff help job seekers prepare for, find, and retain employment by teaching them job-seeking and job-retaining skills; conducting career interest and skill assessments; helping individuals prepare resumes and improve their interviewing skills; and providing career information, listings of available jobs, individual counseling, and financial help for job training. WorkForce Center Resource Areas provide job seekers with free access to computers, software, the Internet, phones, fax, and printers to assist them in their job search efforts. While many of DEED’s job seeker services are available to anyone, DEED also provides targeted services to individuals receiving welfare, veterans, and individuals that face physical and/or mental barriers to employment.

Several initiatives are currently focused on improving services to both businesses and individuals, including efforts to expand the workforce services available to businesses, streamline the Dislocated Worker program, refine performance measures driving service delivery, and better connect workforce development services to regional economic development projects.

Note:  This indicator reflects the success of the following publicly funded workforce development programs – Dislocated Worker Program, Food Support Employment and Training, Minnesota Family Investment Program Employment Services, State Services for the Blind Workforce Development, Vocational Rehabilitation, Welfare-to-Work, and Workforce Investment Act Title I-B adult and dislocated worker programs.

How is DEED doing?
The placement rate, (job seekers who are employed after participating in a workforce development program), indicates how effective DEED’s services are. Wage levels indicate the quality of those jobs and their contribution to both individual and economic well-being. These two measures help DEED assess the overall success of workforce development services to individuals. In the current economic environment, customers are finding fewer opportunities for placement and less placement at higher wages.

The latest results from DEED’s WorkForce Center customer surveys reflect a high degree of satisfaction among both businesses and job seekers with services provided by Minnesota’s WorkForce Center System. Businesses served during the 12-month period ending December 2006 reported an overall satisfaction score of 75.4 (scores range from 0 to 100) on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). Jobseekers reported an average ACSI satisfaction score of 71.6. To put these results into perspective, businesses using the ACSI include FedEx (86), Target (77), Xcel Energy (70), Delta Airlines (64), and Qwest Communications (70). 

For more information on:
● DEED http://www.deed.state.mn.us 

Why is this goal important?
Unemployment insurance (UI) is an important workforce and economic stabilizer. UI benefits provide a temporary safety net that allows qualified individuals to more easily transition to their next job. UI benefits also help employers manage seasonal work and work fluctuations by ensuring a supply of skilled labor that can return to work after a temporary layoff event. A superior UI program must address these needs in an efficient and effective manner that continually adapts to changing demands of our society.

Minnesota’s Unemployment Insurance (UI) Program was enacted in 1936 with the primary purpose of providing a temporary partial wage replacement to those Minnesota workers who had become unemployed through no fault of their own. In 2006, more than 175,000 Minnesotans received a total of over $680 million in unemployment benefits from the state and federal Unemployment Insurance Trust Funds.
 

Significant UI activities include determining the amount of worker potential benefits, resolving benefit disputes (determining whether employment loss was caused by the applicant), and ensuring the accuracy of the benefit payment process.

The UI system is based on an insurance model with premiums paid by employers. The premiums are experience-rated; those employers with a history of layoffs pay a higher rate than those with no worker layoffs. The Department is responsible for calculating rates for and collecting payments from over 125,000 employers, and determining if new employers are covered under the UI program.

What is DEED doing to achieve this goal?
The UI Program has been dealing with three challenges: 1) reduced administrative funding from the U.S. Department of Labor, 2) aging technology, and 3) unpredictable workloads and increased customer expectations.  To address these challenges, DEED continues to manage three major transitions: 1) changing from staff-operated manual processes to automated processes; 2) moving from staff-managed operations to customer controlled interactions; and 3) refocusing staff from supporting internal processes to providing solutions for external customer service needs.

How is DEED’s progress?
Previously staff-intensive and paper-based, the new employer on-line system was implemented in the summer of 2005. It is 100% self-service allowing employers to file their quarterly wage detail reports, compute their UI taxes due, and make their payments. UI taxes are now processed in minutes, where formerly it took weeks.  In 2006, 73% of employers paid their UI taxes electronically, up from 27% in 2005. This translates to 88% of all 2006 UI tax dollars collected.

While Minnesota has taken applications for UI benefits online at www.uimn.org since 1999, 2006 saw an increase in usage, with 41% of applicants applying online, up from 35% in 2005. Nearly all the remaining applications were done over the telephone using a toll-free number. Going into an office and filling out a piece of paper is a thing of the past.

The way things used to be...

Once an application is filed, applicants are then required, on a bi-weekly basis, to file a certification that they are unemployed and meet the ongoing eligibility requirements, and to report any earnings. It is this continued request that triggers a benefit payment. In 2006, 29% of the over 1.4 million continued requests were filed online. The vast majority of the rest were done over the telephone, toll-free, through an interactive voice response process. In contrast, during 2005, only 11% of continued requests were filed online.

In early August 2006, the program began making UI benefit payments using debit cards instead of paper checks. In addition to the payments now made by debit card, a substantial increase in direct deposits has occurred – from 16% of all payments in April 2006 to over 58% in November 2006. This has eliminated the problem of lost and stolen checks, benefiting both applicants and program administration. 

While most applicants for unemployment benefits are laid off due to lack of work, about 35 percent become unemployed because they quit or are fired. Under limited circumstances, individuals who quit are eligible for benefits, and those fired are denied benefits only if misconduct was involved. A fact-gathering process is required with an individual judgment made in each of over 60,000 cases.  Additionally, 80,000 issues of ongoing eligibility must be adjudicated. This critical process is time-consuming and labor-intensive, involving a significant percentage of the entire UI staff. 

In 2006, a major initiative was implemented to improve the quality and timeliness of this critical function. Appeals from initial adjudications were filed in over 18,500 cases in 2006. Each appeal requires a hearing before an unemployment law judge. Changes made in the handling of appeals have allowed Minnesota to improve performance over the last four years, going from the bottom third of states to the top ten in the timely handling of appeals – while maintaining a level of quality at nearly 98%. This means that individuals who are determined eligible for benefits receive their payment more quickly and those denied benefits are notified sooner, reducing overpayments and the costs involved in recouping those overpayments.

2007 is scheduled to bring delivery on the second and final phase of a major overhaul of the UI technology system that began in the fall of 2001. The new benefits system, scheduled to be implemented on September 30, will make the program much more streamlined for applicants. Everything about the applicant’s UI account will be available to the applicant online, and virtually all UI activities may be done online.  All activities will be processed faster and benefit payments made more quickly. The new system will result in a significant reduction in erroneous payments, which will help the trust fund balances and ultimately result in lower taxes on employers. The system design incorporates a number of changes to benefit payments that requires legislative action during the 2007 session. These changes include an expansion of coverage to new labor market entrants, meaning that more than 2,000 individuals who are now denied will be eligible for benefits.

For more information, visit:  www.uimn.org

Last update on 07/23/2007