About 15 percent of workers in Northwest Minnesota had filed an unemployment insurance claim from the middle of March to the end of April, amounting to 46,000 applications through April 25.
By the Department of Employment and Economic Development’s estimates, there were about 296,000 people in the labor force in March of 2020.
According to DEED, Northwest Minnesota has seen the slowest increase in claims among the six planning regions since then.
Thirty percent of the labor force in Mahnomen County has filed a claim, the second highest in the state. About 24 percent of the work force in Cass County has filed, making it the third highest in the state. Around 16.7 percent of Beltrami County’s workforce has filed an unemployment insurance claim.
