ROCHESTER – Buoyed by strong growth in the health care industry, Minnesota’s third-largest city continues to outpace the rest of the state in job creation.

The Rochester Metropolitan Statistical Area added about 7,000 jobs over the past year, a 6.3% year-to-year increase, according to the September jobs report from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). By comparison, Minnesota as a whole was up 1.2% during the same time period. The next closest region to Rochester was Mankato, which grew 1.6% year to year.

Much of the growth in Rochester MSA, which includes Dodge, Fillmore, Olmsted and Wabasha counties, was driven by a 15% year-to-year increase in the education and health services sector. The sector employed 62,435 people in the region in September, nearly half the overall workforce.

The strong job numbers come as Mayo Clinic breaks ground on the first phases of “Bold. Forward. Unbound. In Rochester.” The $5 billion project — the largest investment in Minnesota history — is expected to bring about 2,000 construction workers to Rochester in the coming years.

While Mayo has not said how many employees it plans to hire once the new facilities open, local economic development officials expect the impacts of the expansion to reverberate across the region.

“As their growth goes up, the rest of the economy grows as well,” said John Wade, president of the Rochester Area Economic Development, Inc. (RAEDI). “If you think about neighboring communities, too, there will be more housing opportunities and job opportunities and businesses looking to expand.”

Wade said he also sees potential for growth in other sectors tied to Mayo, such as hospitality, which makes up more than 8% of the region’s workforce. Precision manufacturing and medical technology were also identified as potential growth sectors.

While the newest shark at the Minnesota Zoo might be particularly skilled at swimming, she was named after St. Paul’s beloved Olympic gymnast, the zoo announced Thursday.

Suni the zebra shark was born Aug. 17, just after the conclusion of the summer Olympics in Paris, where gymnast Suni Lee earned three medals.

Zoo visitors will be able to spot the striped baby Suni in the shark nursery in Discovery Bay, according to the zoo’s weekly newsletter. Those stripes won’t last forever; by the time she’s one, Suni’s stripes will be replaced with spots.

Visitors may find Suni exploring her environment or lying still, which is normal. Zebra sharks can rest motionless on the bottom and use throat muscles to pump water across their gills.

Zebra sharks are an endangered species, over-hunted for their fins, according to the zoo. The zoo is part of a global program that sends eggs and pups from zoos and aquariums to Indonesia to be released into the wild.

Suni’s mom is Ruby the shark, the zoo’s only breeding female. Ruby is also the mother of 7-year-old female JZ. Mother sharks do not raise their young, unlike many aquatic mammals like dolphins.

Ruby is a genetic match for the shark rehabilitation program and the zoo hopes to provide viable eggs in the future.

We at the Minnesota Star Tribune are committed to continually enhancing our digital products and experience. Earlier this year, we rebooted and upgraded the Minnesota Star Tribune’s website and apps to create a cleaner, crisper, modern platform that we’ll continue to build upon. And today, we’re reaching out to let you know about another upcoming enhancement that will impact anyone who visits startribune.com or our mobile apps.

Starting Friday, Oct. 25, we are making changes to our login and subscription management system. These changes will require you to log back into your Minnesota Star Tribune account on startribune.com and to our apps when login goes live there early next week. We’re sorry for the small inconvenience – but it will be worth it.

Why are we doing this? We are moving subscription management for our digital subscribers to a modern subscription management platform. This platform will level up your subscription management experience, allowing us to serve you in ways that were not possible with our legacy system.

Enhancements you will notice include a modern payment infrastructure and subscription management, including the ability to easily make changes to your subscription right in the platform. You will also see a simplified login flow using your email address (no need to remember a separate username).

If you are a subscriber, or if you have logged into the site over the past two years, you should have already received communication about this via email, and we encourage you read those communications to ensure you are prepared for this change. In addition, you will see messaging on our website and apps notifying you of this coming change.

If you encounter any issues, you can find more information about our updates here.

In addition, we will be rolling out new ways to log in to your account, starting with Google, on Friday.

This upgrade also lays the foundation for greater personalization and content customization for a more robust digital experience in the future.