The unemployment rate in Freeborn County went up more than the state average in 2008. It jumped more than 2 percentage points in a single year.

In November 2007, the unemployment rate was 4.4 percent. By November 2008, the rate was 6.5 percent, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Many counties in Minnesota saw unemployment numbers begin to rise in late spring and summer. Most had shifts between 1 to 2 percentage points, according to Jennifer Ridgeway, a regional analyst with the Department of Employment and Economic Development. She said few were more than 2 percentage points.

November was the month when Minnesota WorkForce Centers saw the largest increases for the number of people filing unemployment insurance, Ridgeway said.

The Rochester metro area — Olmsted, Dodge and Wabasha counties — went from 3.3 in November 2007 to 4.7 in November 2008. Mower County went from 3.7 to 4.7 for the same period, and Steele County went from 3.6 to 5.4.

Winter can be the hardest time of year to find work — January especially. Many construction jobs come to a halt. Many manufacturers, Ridgeway said, scale back production to make time for the holidays, for vacations and for shifts in demand.

“It’s very typical to have high unemployment going into the new year,” she said.

People used to find holiday employment in the retail sector, but Ridgeway said the past few years have had less of a seasonal bump.

An unemployment rate is the number of unemployed people seeking work relative to the size of the workforce. In other words, students, stay-at-home parents and other people not seeking work are not factored.

Ridgeway said another thing to remember is that many people during economic downturns choose to go back to school. She said though Freeborn County’s unemployment rate presently is higher than the state average, it tends to track the state average over time.

Minnesota went from 4 percent in November 2007 to 6 percent in November 2008, she said.

Unemploment numbers are based on where people reside; therefore, they aren’t necessarily indicators of job growth in a community. Layoffs in neighboring communities, such as a reduction of 100 workers at Viracon in Owatonna slated for January, can impact Freeborn County.

Job growth numbers take longer to compile. The latest ones are from the first half of 2008.

Ridgeway said Freeborn County jobs were down a half percent in the first half of 2008 — less than 100 jobs — but it does reflect the start of the recession’s impact. She said the hardest hits for the county and for the state came in the fall and will be shown on the next round of figures.

“The state expects to lose jobs in 2009,” she said.

State economist Tom Stinson forecast that Minnesota will lose 58,000 jobs between early December — when he made the announcement — and the end of the present U.S. economic recession. He projected the recovery to begin in 2010.

At that announcement — where Stinson predicted a $5.2 billion state budget deficit over the next 2 1/2 years — he noted the U.S. economy relies heavily on consumer spending and therefore credit, too. With tightened credit markets and bad news of problems in housing loans and the financial system, consumers are reasonably wary of spending, he said. He said if the credit market gets rolling again, so will the consumer-based economy.

According to surveys by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, credit still is available to businesses in the region, but lenders have raised credit standards, so fewer applicants make the cut.

“All signs point to declining regional economic activity in 2009,” said Toby Madden, regional economist at the Minneapolis Fed.

According to a fed news release about its annual poll of business leaders, unemployment rates in 2009 are expected to rise, and recovery in the housing markets is more than a year away.

“Agricultural producers had a good year in 2008, but are concerned about profitability in 2009. District manufacturers noted a slowdown in 2008, and they expect it to continue in 2009,” the Minneapolis Fed said.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis economists forecast the unemployment rate in Minnesota to reach 9 percent in 2009. It also expects a decrease in job growth in Minnesota of a half percent.

The Minneapolis Fed oversees the Ninth District — Minnesota, northern Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Dakotas and Montana. A news release said the district’s numbers are following the U.S. economy.

“According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the arbiter of when recessions begin and end, the U.S. economy slipped into a recession starting in December 2007. Since the beginning of 2008, the U.S. economy has lost 1.9 million jobs through November. Furthermore, initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits were up more than 50 percent in November compared with a year earlier.

“The broadest measure of economic growth, gross domestic product, didn’t decrease during the first half of 2008, but contracted 0.5 percent in the third quarter and is anticipated to drop further in the fourth quarter. The third and fourth quarters were dealt sharp decreases in consumer spending, which comprises more than two-thirds of the economy.”