Say Anything Blog

KFYR - North Dakotans are known for their work ethic, and many of us are pounding the pavement everyday.

North Dakota leads the nation in employment, according to the latest statistics.

Job Service North Dakota places the state`s unemployment rate for the month of October at 2.5 percent. The national average was 5 percent. The employment levels in North Dakota are also higher this year compared to 2004. Experts say there are many factors contributing to these new numbers. Because of nice fall weather, construction ran late, and there was an increase in ag processing employment.

States in the Upper Plains region tended to have the lowest unemployment rates, while several hurricane affected states in the South have the highest.

This is down 0.1% from the rate a year ago and 0.3% from last month.

Really, North Dakota's unemployment is low. It is dang hard finding qualified employees right now. My office has been looking for a couple of months now to fill a position at $12/hour and we just can't anyone qualified. And with companies like Wal-Mart, Lowes and Best Buy moving into our communities finding employees is going to be even harder.

That's good for wages, but not necessarily good for the community as a whole

If the unemployment rate stays this low inflation is going to become a worry as businesses increase prices so they can pay higher wages and attract more employees.

Ryan from Flickertail Journal also points out that this super-low unemployment probably isn't good, but his reasoning is all wrong:

At ten percent of the population, the very high rate of underemployment really seems to be the reason we have such low unemployment rates. The 2.5 percent isn't so impressive when you take into account that people are working multiple jobs just to keep up - and that's during the summer, before the high heating bills are going to kick in.

Some rate of unemployment is a good thing, believe it or not. Around 4 to 5 percent of the population is generally switching jobs, entering the job market, just getting out of school, etc.

I worry about the quality of jobs we have in North Dakota as well. In Bismarck alone, two Super Wal-Marts, a Kohl's, a Best Buy, and a Lowe's are going to open soon. A Super Target is in the works. And a Home Depot opened up last year.

I have a hard time believing that 10% of North Dakota's citizens are working two jobs because they're "underemployed." In a state economy where fast-food workers are getting $9.00/hour most of them are probably working two jobs because wages are at a level where that looks attractive. Employers are screaming for workers right now, so people are stretching themselves to meet demand.

North Dakota's economy is booming, but what we need is more workers not hand-wringing about the "quality of jobs." Driving away businesses for providing jobs that aren't good enough is no way to build a sound economy. We should be focusing on how to bring more people into our communities to fill these positions.

Given that North Dakota's Indian reservations have an unemployment rate in the 60's maybe something could be done to coax those people off the reservation. But then, that's more of a federal issue than a state issue.