Best days to be unemployed in Minnesota: Thursdays and Fridays

McElroy, Rukavina. Photos: MnSCU, DFL

That’s because those are the days with the shortest wait-times for help from state workforce centers, according to Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) Commissioner Dan McElroy. But in other testimony before a state House committee Monday, a man who was among 200 workers laid off at a Chanhassen printing plant suggested it’s useless even trying: “Nobody has any time to call you back. Their voice mails are full.”

State Rep. Tom Rukavina said he called the hearing of the committee he chairs — the full name is the Higher Education and Workforce Development Finance and Policy Division Committee — after hearing tales of poor service to out-of-work constituents in his Iron Range district.

The embattled McElroy, a former assistant majority leader when Republicans held the House, went on a 10-city tour last week, trying to drum up support for his department’s programs — and his own leadership, in the wake of withering DFL critiques.

Rukavina, a DFLer, is running for governor.