News

The Spirit of the Prairie: Generosity in Todd County

Friday, December 11, 2020

On a beautiful fall evening in late September hundreds of cars rolled into the Todd County Fairgrounds to take part in a “food drop,” a euphemism for a mass food distribution. It’s an all too familiar scene played out not only here, but across the country. The event, sponsored by the Food Shelf, and Todd County Health and Human Services, a team of volunteers served an estimated 570 households with boxes of dairy, product, and meat, no questions asked. Community involvement in this event, along with similar food distributions that take place in church parking lots, inside of local food shelves...

Meet the Texas Town that Competes to Win

Monday, November 02, 2020

Ever considered locating your business in a small town? If so, Lufkin, Texas, has a message for you. “We are well positioned to have companies locate out of large cities to a place with small-town feel and the amenities of metropolitan areas,” says Bob Samford, economic development director for the Lufkin Economic Development Corp. “We offer a great location with big-city benefits.” On Interstate 69 about 90 minutes northeast of Houston, Lufkin is a community of 36,000 people who enjoy family, hard work, loyalty and quality of life, says Samford. The corporate executives who have made the decision to invest in Lufkin hav...

Why Target, Walmart, And Best Buy Are Booming Amid The Pandemic - And Being Hailed As Heroes

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

In late February, Target CEO Brian Cornell was sipping coffee in a Manhattan deli—one eye on the keynote address he was soon to give at an investor conference, the other on his phone as news alerts of America’s first confirmed Covid-19 death buzzed in. Target’s communications, investor relations and special-events teams had spent months agonizing over every detail of the speech, given to 200 Wall Street analysts and journalists and able, in a matter of minutes, to send Target’s stock price climbing—or crashing. Three years ago, Cornell, 61, who took over Target’s top spot in 2014 after running Pepsi’s food business, ha...

Enterprise CP: Vital Link in the Food Shelf Supply Chain

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Nearly all of our grocery shopping begins at home when we sit down to make “the list,” that hand-written scrap of paper of the food items we need to fill up our pantry. As is the case in most homes, when the shelf gets low, it’s time to go. When it comes to filling the grocery cart, we rarely question the availability of our favorite foods being on the store shelf. Questions like where does it come from and how does it get there are not usually in the thoughts of most consumers. So, you may be surprised to lear...

How To Make Your Virtual Company Party A Success

Tuesday, October 13, 2020

With the morning air a bit crisper, the sun setting earlier and the leaves falling to the ground, we are reminded that the holiday season is quickly approaching. For businesses, this means it's time to start planning the time-honored year-end company party. However, amid a global pandemic, party objectives and safety concerns are markedly different this year. Stymied by in-person gathering restrictions, companies turning to virtual solutions have the difficult task of figuring out how to make these "events" meaningful and engaging. While this could make party-planning committees hold their collective breaths, all hope is not lost, and businesses can stil...

Manufacturing Week Highlights Critical Role Industry Plays in State’s Economy

Thursday, October 01, 2020

St. Paul - Manufacturing, which has long played a key role in the state's economy, is even more important now as Minnesota focuses on revitalizing our economy and rebounding from the impacts of COVID-19. As the state's second-largest industry, manufacturing added $52.7 billion to Minnesota's economy last year. Governor Tim Walz has proclaimed Oct. 1-7 as Minnesota Manufacturing Week. During the week – and throughout the month – manufacturers are opening their doors to virtual tours by the public as a way of attracting new workers and students who are considering careers in manufacturing. "Manufacturing jobs pay good, family-sustaining wages well above the state'...

DEED Examines: Where are the Job Seekers?

Wednesday, September 30, 2020

St. Paul - The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) released a new article that examines the question many Minnesota employers are asking right now: Where are the job seekers? Employers in industries such as Health Care, Hospitality, Retail and Food Service are desperate for staff at a time when the statewide unemployment rate is at 7.4%. While the August unemployment rate is lower than it has been the last few months, it is still 4.5 points higher than in March 2020. This 7.4% unemployment rate in Minnesota represents over 230,000 unemployed workers – over two-and-a-half times the number o...

Jobs in Demand: Combined Food Preparation and Serving Workers, including Fast Food

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Combined Food Preparation and Serving Workers were among the first workers affected by the emergence of COVID-19 and subsequent executive orders that closed the businesses that employ these workers. As many restaurants and bars have re-opened, these workers are in high demand on the front lines doing specific tasks such as taking customer orders, relaying that to the cooks, and cleaning and organizing eating, service and kitchen areas. The main tasks for food preparation and serving workers include, but are not limited to, communicating with customers and accepting payment from them, gathering food items from storage, cooking and reheating items, serving food to customers...

Jobs in Demand: Nursing Assistants

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

With demand for long-term care workers surging amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, Nursing Assistants are among the most in-demand jobs in Minnesota right now. Typically working under the direction of nursing staff, Nursing Assistants provide immediate patient care such as feeding, bathing, dressing, grooming, and moving patients, as well as basic healthcare procedures such as taking blood pressure and temperature. Nursing Assistants (NAs) are most likely to work in nursing and residential care facilities, assisted living facilities and retirement communities, home health care services, and in smaller numbers, at hospitals. Read full article.

Jobs in Demand: Retail Salespersons

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

As the largest and most common job in the state, Retail Salespeople are seemingly always in demand. Nearly 85,000 people are employed as Retail Salespeople, working on the frontlines during the COVID-19 pandemic to help customers find and purchase the products they need. Though many retail workers were laid off temporarily in March and April, many have come back to work as retailers have re-opened. There are many job duties, skills and knowledge that make a good Retail Salesperson, including preparing merchandise for purchase or rental, maintaining knowledge of products and sales, and operating cash registers to complete financial transactions. Retail sales is incredibl...

Study: Your dollar goes further in rural Minnesota, if you can find a place to live

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Nowhere in Minnesota can a person afford the cost of living on the state minimum wage of $9.86 an hour. In fact, most regions require well over $15 an hour to afford to live. However, rural Minnesotans can often afford a similar or higher quality of life than their metro area counterparts, despite overall lower wages, according to a new study from the Center for Rural Policy and Development. Read full article.

DEED Announces Names of Businesses That Received Small Business Emergency Loans

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

St. Paul – The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) announced that 1,020 small businesses throughout Minnesota received a Small Business Emergency Loan, which is different than the more recently announced Small Business Relief Grants. More than $27 million in loans were made from $30 million in special revenue funds allocated to the emergency loan program. The remaining $2.8 million was distributed to lenders to assist with loan administration and technical assistance expenses. DEED worked with lenders throughout Minnesota to implement the emergency loan program, which opened for applications in late March. Loans were issued to qualified businesses beginnin...

For some small farms, Covid-19 pandemic has been good for business

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

The Covid-19 pandemic has sown chaos throughout the food sector, triggering shortages of some products and gluts of others. But some family farms have found their own fortunes lifted by the upheaval. That's one of the takeaways from a Pioneer Press story that talks with small-scale farmers that have seen demand soar for products like zucchini, pick-your-own fruits and locally raised meats. Read full article.

General Mills looking for more manufacturing partners, suppliers to meet demand

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

General Mills plans to boost the number of outsourcing manufacturing partners and suppliers by as much as 20 percent from pre-pandemic levels as the food company tries to keep up with soaring demand for products like baking mixes and soup. The Wall Street Journal reports on the effort by Golden Valley-based General Mills (NYSE: GIS), which historically has used third-party partners to handle about 30 percent of its products sold in North America, bolstering the 24 manufacturing plants the company owns in the United States. Read full article.

Site Selection 2020: The Importance of “Regional Depth” with Global Reach

Monday, September 14, 2020

The last several years of corporate site selection have been influenced by many trends. Among these are corporate tax cuts, a red-hot industrial real estate market, the explosion of e-commerce, increasing trade protectionism, record economic growth and, in a stunning reversal, a global health pandemic and recession. It seems the ever-shifting tide of global and domestic affairs can be confusing at best and downright frightening at worst to corporate executives evaluating where to locate their next headquarters, newest manufacturing plant, or distribution center. Risk and uncertainty have never seemed higher, and without looking deeper and thinking differently, it can b...

How to Work from Home Successfully

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

Whether you’re a 9-to-5 office worker or an entrepreneur used to running around to clients and conferences for different business opportunities, the health crisis has caused many people to make the dramatic shift to working entirely from home. As someone who’s experienced the whole spectrum of work setups — everything from corporate offices to coworking spaces to getting work done on cross-country flights — I can say firsthand that even though it can be hard to make this quick transition, there are steps you can take to make working from home more manageable. Many people will even find some advantages to this setup that ca...

The Importance Of Remote Working To Younger Generations

Tuesday, August 04, 2020

As more jobs shifted to remote work during the Covid-19 crisis, many Millennial and Gen Z employees experienced “flex work” for the first time in their careers. According to the Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2020, 45% of these younger employees had never worked remotely before the pandemic, compared with just a third after the onset of the pandemic. As of May 2020, the shift to remote work had largely been viewed positively by employees, with more than 60% of younger generations saying they would like the option to work remotely more often after the crisis and use video conferencing instead of travelin...