As Minnesota’s unemployment rate falls, opportunities for graduating seniors increase.

According to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, the unemployment rate is at 3.9 percent, the lowest since June 2006. Jennifer Rogers, employee relations specialist at the Career Development Center, said there are many contributing factors and that this is good news for seniors.

“There’s a lot of factors that are all converging at the same time. Certainly the companies have been saving up their money across the Great Recession and hoarded a lot of cash,” Rogers said. “And now that business is picking up and they have more customers and more demand, they now have the cash to start increasing production and adding more staff.”

According to Rogers, more business came to Minnesota in the last few years, which contributed to the low unemployment rate as well.

“Because of the Great Recession, we really saw a large number of startups,” Rogers said. “We’ve had a lot of new companies starting up here in the last five years, and they’re now again doing well so they’re poised to grow and they need to hire people.”

The high number of jobs in technology has been a helpful factor for senior engineering major Megan McGill.

“Tech jobs have been in demand for a few years now,” McGill said. “I have been offered a position at the company I interned with this summer, but am keeping my options open until I’ve had the chance to see what jobs are out there.”

With more jobs opening up, Rogers said it can be confusing for seniors to narrow down their search, so she encourages them to use the Career Development Center if they need help.

“Sometimes the more options you have, the more confusing it gets, so we hope that there will be more students visiting with us in our individual appointments,” Rogers said. “We can help students narrow down their career interests and then become a little more focused when they’re ready to search for jobs or if they’re thinking about graduate school.”

Senior Rosey Coryn has found the Career Development Center particularly helpful in her job search.

“Their on-campus interviewing program and job listings page are both phenomenal resources for students,” Coryn said.

Coryn isn’t the only student who has sought help from the Career Development Center, according to Rogers.

“We had, in our fall on-campus interviewing program, a record number of interviews. We had almost 770,” Rogers said. “That tells me that the employers were ready to interview and make offers to people in the fall semester.”

To stay positive about their futures, it’s important for students for pay attention to the unemployment rate, Rogers said.

“I just think that that number (unemployment rate) should give someone optimism and hope and positivity,” Rogers said.

Theresa Bourke can be reached at bour5445@stthomas.edu.