Why Minnesota? (Part 1)

The question we were most often asked, when we told people about our plan: Why Minnesota?



Consider the numbers. At the time of my downsizing, Toledo had a 12%+ Unemployment rate, and the outlook for Northwest Ohio didn’t appear much better. For the uninitiated, the Glass City is sandwiched geographically in an uncomfortable economic region between Detroit and Cleveland, both of which have their share of unemployment problems (among other things).

Earlier this year Detroit made #4 on Forbes top twenty most depressed cities, charting factors like unemployment, crime rate, suicide rate, and cloudy days. Cleveland beats out Detroit, taking home the #1 spot. Other day-trip cities on the list? Flint MI (#5), Canton, Akron, & Youngstown (at 9, 12, & 18 respectively). And here we are at #15 living right in the middle of this economic mess, on the shores of the Black Swamp.

Could Forbes be wrong? As we began looking at the bigger picture one thing became clear - while there was opportunity in NWOH, it was limited. The Akron Beacon Journal had it right when they said: Misery, thy name is Northern Ohio.

To further illustrate the point, and reassure my wife that we were making the right decision, I snapped two photos of Craigslist job postings, refined to my industry of expertise (Manufacturing) and emailed them to her. Here’s the listing for my home town:



Toledo’s picture shows that there are companies hiring - new postings are listed every day. Maybe it wasn’t doom and gloom after all. In fact, while I was being downsized my cousin took a job in Cleveland.

Still, compare Toledo’s Craigslist job board to Minneapolis’s.



Note, while it's hard to see in this photo it’s the exact same date, and exact same search criteria (Manufacturing), I’m not manipulating the photo in any way with search filters. Where Toledo had one or two postings per day, MPLS (as the natives abbreviate it) had literally too much information to fit on one page, and rightfully so. Minnesota has more Fortune 500 companies per capita than any other state in the nation.

So why Minnesota? The first rule of fishing - go to where the fish are. You’ll have an easier time catching them in the river, than you will in a gravel pit. The same holds true with jobs.

Oh, remember my cousin? The one that put a year's lease down on a Cleveland apartment to take a new job? She got laid off after a month. Downsized. Misery in Northern Ohio, indeed.