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UnitedHealth hiring for 1,700 jobs in the Twin Cities metro

Published  October 6, 2015 9:16am CDT
News
FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul

EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (KMSP) - It would appear, with layoffs at Target and General Mills, that it has been a rough year for the Twin Cities’ job market. However, according to experts, those layoffs didn’t hurt the overall strength of the market that much.

Monday, UnitedHealth Group announced it would be looking to fill about 1,700 openings in the metro and an additional 1,000 telecommuting jobs.

United Health’s openings are being felt all across the Metro. Paul Beard, who runs Sky Water Search Partners, an executive recruitment firm, is seeing a boom in business.

“We've added this additional space to double our capacity with personnel," Beard said.

The firm says its growth is a direct result of the strong job market in the Twin Cities.

"I'd tell you the vast majority of companies we work with are very aggressive, foot on the gas pedal and hiring,” Beard told Fox 9. "The clients we work and we work with many --are very bullish with the state of our economy."

Bill Blazer with the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce says these are the high quality career building jobs our region needs.

“This company has learned that in order to grow you have to change, and the good news is the Twin Cities in Minnesota has thousands of companies that understand that. And every time they change there might be a little pain along the way, but that change is what creates long time job and opportunities,” Blazer said.

Back in March, when Target laid off 1,700 employees in a single day, morale around the Twin Cities’ job market was pretty low. Now, Beard says the regional job market is as good as it has been in 15 years.

"This is the best market we've seen since 1999 and back then we referred to that as Nirvana, it just didn't get any better," Beard said.

And Beard doesn’t see the strong job market going anywhere for the time being.

"The market is good. It's been a slow recovery but one that's very healthy and we'll feel well sustain as well. I don't see it slowing down for a couple of years."