St. Paul, MN (KROC-AM News) - Minnesota’s economy shed about 2,900 jobs last month, but the state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate remained steady at 3.7 percent.

It’s been unchanged for five straight months, but is a tenth of a point higher than the rate from March of last year.

Professional and business services saw the most growth in March with 1,500 new jobs. Other sectors that gained jobs were manufacturing (up 1,000), trade, transportation and utilities (up 700), financial activities (up 400), and logging and mining (up 300).

The following sectors lost jobs in March: education and health services (down 1,700), construction (down 1,600), leisure and hospitality (down 1,400), other services (down 1,000), government (down 800) and information (down 300).

The monthly jobs report from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development also revised the number of jobs gained in February downward by 300 positions, which puts the state’s year-over-year net gain at just under 36,000 jobs. That works out to a job growth rate of only 1.3-percent, which remained well below the national average of 2 percent.

The report also shows the Rochester area outperformed the state as a whole with a job growth rate of 2.1-percent, which works out to a net gain of about 2400 jobs during the past 12 months.

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