The nation's unemployment rate has taken a slight drop, raising hopes of an economic upturn. But the JOBS NOW Coalition, a Minnesota research group, said there may be more to the story than numbers.

The latest numbers indicate the economy may be turning around. The national unemployment rate is down slightly (to six percent) and over 100,000 new jobs were created last month. But some analysts say there may be less here than meets the eye. Kris Jacobs, JOBS NOW executive director, said that's still short of the jobs needed to keep pace with the growth of the labor force.

"It's certainly better than job losses, but it still falls short of the 150,000 jobs a month we would have needed to keep up with growth in the labor force alone," she said. "So, instead of losing 2.4 million jobs over the last two and a half years, the economy should have added 4.5 million jobs, just to keep up with the growth in the labor force."

Jacobs said it's also telling to look at the kind of jobs being created. Many pay low wages, and a third of the state's jobs now pay less than is needed to support a family, she said.

"We need to keep clear, and certainly in Minnesota, where we've lost so many good jobs, that many of the jobs we've gained are nowhere near as good as the jobs we've lost," she noted. "One of every five new jobs created in the last three months was a temporary job. At the same time we're gaining more than 54,000 of these mostly low-paying temporary jobs, we were also losing another 91,000 manufacturing jobs."

Forty percent of workers in Greater Minnesota make less than $10.60 an hour, which means they don't earn enough to meet basic needs, even if they have no dependents, she said.

For more information
Visit the JOBS NOW website, www.jobsnowcoalition