Need a job? North Dakota is calling
North Dakota has the healthiest labor market in the U.S. Thanks to a $700 million budget surplus and a big tax cut, the state has 9,000 job openings -- which it's hoping to fill with laid-off workers from the rest of the Midwest. Dan Bobkoff reports.
A pedestrian walks through falling snow in downtown Fargo, N.D. (Daniel Barry/Getty Images)
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Kai Ryssdal: The July unemployment rate was 9.4 percent. That sounds pretty high. But there are states where anything less than 10 percent would be cause for celebration. The jobless rate in Michigan is 15 percent. The worst in the country. Ohio's at 11 percent. The most-employed state in the U.S. is North Dakota. The labor market there is so healthy cities and counties are trying to attract laid-off workers from the rest of the Midwest. Dan Bobkoff from WCPN in Cleveland has our story.
DAN BOBKOFF: Here in Ohio, the recession has only added to the woes of foreclosures and plant closings. It can be a little depressing.
So when I called up Shane Goettle, who heads the North Dakota Department of Commerce, it was a bit like stepping into bizarro world.
SHANE GOETTLE: Overall our unemployment rate is 4.2 for June. We've had real good strength in energy, agriculture. Tourism has actually been good for us.
And then, there's this:
GOETTLE: We have thousands of jobs available in the state. As of July 1, there are about 9,000 openings.
Nine-thousand jobs.
GOETTLE: I know that may not be the experience of many other states right now, but it is what is happening in North Dakota.
What is happening is a combination of planning and luck that's left the state with something rare these days: a $700 million budget surplus and a big fat tax cut. Its banks mostly avoided the subprime mess, and North Dakota worked to bring in more businesses like Microsoft. Then, prices went up quickly for the state's traditional strengths -- energy and agriculture.
So now with thousands of jobs available, North Dakota officials have been traveling out of state to try to fill them. Jerry Chavez heads a development corporation for the small city of Minot. Since the beginning of the year, his group has been making monthly visits to job fairs in hard-hit Midwestern communities.
JERRY CHAVEZ: The initial reaction is wow, what are you doing here from North Dakota? You have jobs that are available? Tell us more about these jobs.
Once they get over the surprise that North Dakota is doing well, more out-of-work Midwesterners think seriously about picking up and moving. People like Milton Moore of Cleveland.
MILTON MOORE: For me, the last year or two has been terrible. It's been bad. No steady employment. Nothing steady.
Moore works in construction when he can get work. But with all his free time lately, he's been playing a lot of Xbox, and it was through a chat room on that video-game system that he started talking to a fellow player.
MOORE: And we were talking jobs, and he was like, 'You should come to North Dakota.' So we had this nice little lengthy conversation on North Dakota, the population and the whole woo-wop.
Moore was intrigued so he sent his resume to a bunch of North Dakota employers. He's ready and willing to move when the call comes.
Near Columbus, Ohio, Janet Morgan is meeting the movers after she got the call from a call center in Bismarck.
She had degrees in useful things like computer science and communications, and yet, had no luck finding something in Ohio's job market.
JANET MORGAN: There are just so many people out of work that you could have 500 people including PhD's applying for a janitor's position, and they're going to take whoever.
So she packed up her stuff and is heading out. Morgan hopes to be promoted quickly at her new call-center job. And while she would have rather stayed in Ohio, she likes her new home.
MORGAN: Oh, Bismarck is beautiful! It's clean, and there's a mall, and it's a nice mall, and has some of my favorite stores.
But it's warm now. What about the frigid winter? North Dakota's Shane Goettle says it's not so bad, and these days, they're even taking advantage of their weather.
SHANE GOETTLE: If you like wind, we have a lot of it, but that's been a real potential for our development as well. That's why we're putting wind machines out in the prairie.
Rub it in why don't you.
In Cleveland, I'm Dan Bobkoff for Marketplace.
Comments
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From Corona, CA, 08/30/2009
Can anyone tell me how the interior design business is in Bismarck?
From St. Paul, MN, 08/12/2009
I think its great that North Dakota's economy is doing great. This means that companies are hiring, banks are lending, and consumers are spending. It probably means that if you want to start a business in North Dakota, you have a better chance of getting funding. The State of ND is in a good place financially, so taxes are lower. This is a lot different than what National Geographic reported on in their January 2008 issue about North Dakota.
From Easton, PA, 08/12/2009
I listened with amusement about the story of 9,000 jobs in N.Dakota - for back in 1971, the firm I worked for had a joint venture with Shell Oil to use some of their technology in the N.Dakota area oil fields - it ended up that we were the ONLY engineering job opening in the entire state at the time .
From Madison, WI, 08/12/2009
Reading Shane Goettle's comments about the North Dakota winter, I'm reminded that the Minot airport sells t-shirts that read, "Why not Minot? Freezin's the reason!" That said, economic opportunity has taken people to far worse places in the past.
From Oakand, 08/11/2009
Intriguing...but North Dakota would be a tough place to transition to after living in San Francisco. And it goes beyond just the weather.
From Portland, OR, 08/11/2009
I would be interested to hear to what extent the fact that North Dakota has the only extant state-owned bank explains the healthy state of its economy. The publicly owned Bank of North Dakota makes loans available at reasonable interest rates for local businesses, farmers, students and home owners, and serves as a banker's bank for private state chartered banks. It's a model worth a story on Marketplace.
From Goodyear, AZ, 08/11/2009
I grew up in Fargo, North Dakota. The winters can be wicked cold, but anyone can adapt. A 16 year old recently died here in Phoenix while hiking with his family. I know of many more heat related deaths from the desert than cold related deaths from a northern plains winter. It took me about 3 years to really begin to tolerate AZ Sonoran desert summers and appreciate the sometimes harsh beauty of the desert. But a 1st snowfall of the year in ND is something I always looked forward too. It's the last snowfall of the winter that sometimes can't come soon enough (especially when it come in mid-spring). The beauty of a North Dakota winter might take a while to appreciate, but let it happen.
From Lowell, MA, 08/11/2009
This was an interesting story, and I think it's great if North Dakota can provide opportunities for people in tough situations -- after all, it's exactly what my mother's parents did decades ago when they moved to Grand Forks from Illinois. But as someone who's spent many a Christmas in North Dakota, I have to say I find Shane Goettle's 'it's not so bad' disingenuous to the point of irresponsibility. I understand he doesn't want to scare away prospects, but people moving there from warmer climates need to be prepared for temperatures and winter storms that can be deadly serious.
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