• Minnesota added 15,600 jobs in January.
It was the largest one-month gain since April 2005.
• The state's jobless rate dropped to 7.3 percent from 7.4 percent in December.
The national jobless rate is 9.7 percent.
THE ROAD AHEAD
• Unemployment is expected to stay high into 2011.
• 162,000 Minnesotans have lost jobs in two years.
• Economic improvement is steady, slow.
• Minnesota could come out of the recession sooner than U.S. as a whole.