KSTP TV
Jason Davis

“On the Road with Jason Davis” visits northern Minnesota to learn more about the positive economic impacts of strategic metals mining.

To view the segment, click on the link above.

Mesabi Daily News
Opinion: Dave Lislegard

Let me start by going back to the shutdown of LTV.

Like many workers, I was thankful to have received unemployment and retraining dollars to survive that most difficult time. Regrettably, I must admit, I also at that time let myself be talked into and pushed for a BlueGreen alliance without truly thinking about what the future implications would have on our region. We were told ,and I sadly believed, that the USWA and the Sierra Club had common goals. Ten years later there are fewer jobs, plant shutdowns (Georgia-Pacific/Verso), unemployment and retraining dollars are more common, and the LTV plant, where 1,400 East Range people worked, sits because PolyMet still can’t get permits from the DNR and EPA.

Hibbing Daily Tribune
Charles Ramsay

Unemployment figures on the Iron Range continued to be mixed in August, with Virginia slightly up and Hibbing and Grand Rapids slightly down.

However, statewide figures supplied by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development showed logging and mining jobs had declined by 300 for the month.

Duluth News Tribune
Candace Renalls

“The big story is there’s a lot of jobs at the top end and bottom end, but not a lot of jobs in the middle,” said Drew Digby, the region’s labor analyst for DEED. “There is a continuing squeeze for manufacturing and government jobs while classic middle class jobs, like teachers, will be harder and harder to get.”