Job vacancies in Minnesota swelled to another record high in the last three months of 2021 while the number of unemployed workers continued to decline in what has become a very tight labor market.

The state had about 214,000 job openings in the fourth quarter, surpassing the previous record of 205,000 in the second quarter of 2021, according to a biannual survey released Tuesday by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).

Job vacancies were also up 68% compared to fourth quarter of 2020.

At the same time, there were more than twice as many open positions as unemployed people in Minnesota.

In the fourth quarter, there were fewer than 93,000 unemployed workers in the state, which means there were 0.4 unemployed people for each vacancy, the lowest ratio on record in the state.

"While we're looking at these vacancies as a big challenge for our economy, they are also a sign of an economy that is coming back and where growth is happening," said DEED Commissioner Steve Grove. "You don't have job vacancies unless people are hiring."

He added that labor shortages had been "one of the defining challenges" of Minnesota's economy for several years even before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics releases more frequent estimates of job openings — on a monthly basis — for every state. According to its latest survey, Minnesota had 245,000 job openings in March, nearly twice as many as a year ago.

But that figure was down from 264,000 in January. Economists have been watching for hiring to slow and vacancies to ease as signs that employers are becoming nervous about broader economic conditions.

Amid so many job vacancies, DEED is kicking off a "Summer of Jobs" campaign to highlight job opportunities. The effort will include job shadowing of in-demand areas such as manufacturing, health care and technology.

It will also point employers to often overlooked labor sources such as recently retired workers, young workers, immigrant communities, workers with disabilities and those recently released from correctional facilities.

"There's a lot of labor hiding in plain sight," Grove said.

DEED's report provides more detailed information about job openings by region, industry and occupation as well as information about typical wage offers and educational requirements.

Health care and social assistance jobs accounted for 24% of vacancies, or 52,340. That's up more than 20,000 from the end of 2020. Home health and personal care aides, nursing assistants, medical assistants, registered nurses and lab technicians are in particularly high demand. Wage offers in that sector rose more than 7% in the last year.

Retail trade had 39,630 vacancies, accounting for nearly 19% of total openings. Median wage offers were up 12% in 2021.

Hotels and restaurants had slightly fewer openings than the record levels in the summer of 2021, but still accounted for 15% of vacancies with wage offers up 22% over the year. The occupation in most demand across all industries was for food preparation and serving workers with almost 33,000 vacancies.

The Twin Cities metro area accounted for 59% of the job openings, but the number of vacancies have increased slightly faster in the rest of the state.

A growing number of job openings —about two-thirds — required no education beyond a high school diploma or equivalent.

"We can see that employers are relaxing the requirements of what they're looking for to attract more talent," said Angelina Nguyen, research director of DEED's labor-market information office.

Minnesota had about 68,000 unemployed people in April, when the state jobless rate fell to a record low of 2.2%. The state has been steadily adding jobs every month this year, gaining 11,900 jobs in April and 13,200 jobs in March.

But the state still is about 88,000 jobs short of where it was at before the pandemic. It has recovered only about 79% of jobs lost in the spring of 2020, a slower recovery than the U.S. as a whole, which has recovered about 95% of jobs.

The state's labor force is about 85,000 workers smaller than it was before the pandemic as a number of older workers retired and the state's population has leveled off.