Are you unemployed and out of options? Well, if you live in most areas of the country there is not much hope for you. But there is one state where hiring is really hot right now. If you are desperate for a job, you just might want to check out North Dakota. Way back in the middle of the 19th centurty, author Horace Greeley gave young Americans the following advice: "Go West, young man, go West". Well, we have reached another moment in U.S. history when it may be wise for many Americans to pick up and move to another part of the country in search of opportunity. Of course traveling to North Dakota is not "going west" for all Americans, but for the majority of the population it is. In the 19th century, many Americans traveled west because they believed those that told them that there was "gold in them thar hills", but today a different kind of "gold" is being found in North Dakota. The state is currently enjoying a boom of "black gold", and all of that oil is creating a huge number of jobs. If you are unemployed and you are desperate, you might want to check out North Dakota. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
As I write about so frequently, unemployment is an absolute nightmare in most areas of the country right now. But in North Dakota there are plenty of jobs and they pay really well. Just check out what a new CNN article is saying about what is going on in the state....
Believe it or not, a place exists where companies are hiring like crazy, and you can make $15 an hour serving tacos, $25 an hour waiting tables and $80,000 a year driving trucks.
You just have to move to North Dakota. Specifically, to one of the tiny towns surrounding the oil-rich Bakken formation, estimated to hold anywhere between 4 billion and 24 billion barrels of oil.
CNBC also recently ran an article about the jobs boom up in North Dakota. According to CNBC, there are "help wanted" signs all over the place in little towns such as Williston....
Unemployment is a national problem in the U.S., but you wouldn't know that if you travel through North Dakota.
The state's unemployment rate hovers around 3 percent, and "Help Wanted" signs litter the landscape of cities such as Williston in the same way "For Sale" signs populate the streets of Las Vegas.
"It's a zoo," said Terry Ayers, who drove into town from Spokane, Wash., slept in his truck, and found a job within hours of arrival, tripling his salary. "It's crazy what's going on out here."
If you are desperate for work and you are looking for a "reboot", North Dakota may be an option for you. According to CNN, there are a significant number of families that have already changed their lives by heading out to North Dakota....
McMullen now works as a nanny in exchange for housing. Her husband, who worked on behavior management programs for a school system in North Carolina where he took home about $1,600 a month, found a job working in the oilfields where he makes that same amount of money in one week -- adding up to an annual salary of about $77,000.
"We want to be debt-free, so we came here to play catch-up," said McMullen. "But when I came here, I thought I was on Mars. It's just so crazy that the rest of the country has no jobs, and here's this one place that doesn't have enough people to fill all the jobs."
So is North Dakota for everyone?
Of course not.
First of all, it gets bone-chilling cold in North Dakota in the winter.
If you cannot handle really cold weather then you should not go up there.
Secondly, there is not nearly enough housing in the boom towns and the housing that is available is really expensive.
So you may either have to commute a long way or deal with accommodations that are less than stellar.
North Dakota is very flat, the geography is not very pleasant, there is not much to do there, the "boom towns" are very far from major population centers and moving there would entail major sacrifices for most people.
But there are good jobs up there.
So if you are looking for some good news, you just got some.
Look, it is better to try to do something than to sit around waiting for Barack Obama to save you. As I have written about previously, the Obama jobs plan is a bad joke and even if it got through Congress it would do very little to create jobs.
The truth is that Barack Obama simply does not know what he is doing when it comes to jobs. He continues to push for even more job-killing "free trade" agreements that will result in millions more American jobs being shipped overseas.
Barack Obama continues to run around the country talking about "infrastructure jobs", but according to ABC News, thousands upon thousands of those jobs are actually going to Chinese workers....
In New York there is a $400 million renovation project on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge.
In California, there is a $7.2 billion project to rebuild the Bay Bridge connecting San Francisco and Oakland.
In Alaska, there is a proposal for a $190 million bridge project.
These projects sound like steps in the right direction, but much of the work is going to Chinese government-owned firms.
The sad truth is that the U.S. economy continues to slide even further down the tubes and the vast majority of our politicians have no idea how to fix things.
When Barack Obama first took office, the official U.S. unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. Today it is 9.1 percent.
There are less jobs in the United States today than there were a decade ago, and the number of good paying jobs continues to shrink.
In 1980, 52 percent of all jobs in the United States were middle income jobs. Today, only 42 percent of all jobs are middle income jobs.
So don't sit around waiting for the economy to fix itself. There is no reason to have blind faith in the system at this point.
We live during unconventional times, and many of us are going to have to find unconventional solutions to our problems.
There are lots of good jobs in the western part of North Dakota.
If you need a job, you might want to look into it.
Even the low six figures isn’t much here. Your rent goes up 10% a year because of these college grads have the money to pay the rents that are being asked. Most of kids going to BU, BC & Tufts are paying ‘sticker price’ courtesy of mummy & daddy so they use their cash for more important things (ex. $500 a week for booze, and North Face Coats & designer clothing)
PUT YOUR HANDS TO THE PLOW AND DO NOT TURN BACK.
Don’t forget… As you get these new jobs in ND, when you fill out your W-4 Form for Taxes and you fill out the part that asks you for your Deductions, put 8… 9 is the legal limit and will get you an Audit… but 8 Deductions will save most if not all of your salary… It is the Law that you file your Taxes, but there is no law that you pay… It will go to collections and you can negotiate with the Bill Collector to .25 cents on the dollar… or better… maybe as low as .10 cents… just depends on your negotiating skills…
Yeah, you’re intelligent… You tell people how to avoid paying taxes and then you tell them it is better to let it go to collections? Just another reason why our economy is in the mess it’s in. You disgust me.
The author starts out good, but then at the end slips into a rant that makes it sound like he wants to go back to the days before this mess, as if those very same days weren’t the ones that CAUSED IT. In a global society you will not avoid dealing with people. The two ways you can deal with them is to go to war, or to trade with them. If you trade with them they will depend on you and not go to war with you. In choosing the former we currently spend 1/3 of our entire GDP on the military. It hurts my brain to read AN ECONOMIC BLOG that can’t do the math and see that free trade is infinitely superior option than our extravagant and ongoing war costs. Especially when at the exact second of this writing, war costs have completely destroyed our economy. We are literally BORROWING MONEY TO STAY AT WAR, and an economist is telling us about that free trade is bad, because our money or labor may cross some arbitrary, government defined border, ignoring the fact that we would be free to follow it.
You guys had me then lost me. The high times we enjoyed in the 20th century were an illusion perpetuated on lies and funded by extravagant and thoughtless borrowing against the here and now. I have no desire to go back. And the idea that this should give us so much pride that we further bankrupt ourselves by arming our shores against invasions of reasonably priced consumer goods, is equally ridiculous. The best government propagandist is envious. ********** article. Thanks for the heads up on ND, but you should have stopped there….
Refering back to me previously posted comments about understanding how our monetary system works and how it is tied to our national debt, and how if you don’t understand that than you haven’t a clue about what’s going on….
now with that in mind, poster Deuce is a perfect example when he states “BORROWING MONEY TO STAY AT WORK” – he obviously hasn’t a clue how our monetary system works.
Here’s a clue, the national debt IS the money supply, that has to be created in order for there to by any liquidy(money) in the world, and there is no intention of ever paying it back, to do so would suck all of the money out of the system and leave the world with no way to do commerce. But, don’t take my word for it, read, research and find out for yourself.
PS: excuse me I miss state Deuce’s comment, it should read “BORROWING MONEY TO STAY AT WAR”
It is interesting that you say ND is flat. It isn’t. Ironically, the oil areas are almost exclusively in the North Dakota Badlands. I live outside of Williston, the boom bulls-eye. You can’t find a piece of land where I live that is flat. I can’t get up my driveway in the winter w/o 4 wheel drive. A little research is a good idea
As to the boom. If you don’t have a place to live in advance, Do NOT COME UP HERE!!!!!! I cannot stress that point enough. If you try and come up here and live in a tent, you will find yourself in a very bad situation. People-cicle comes to mind.
North Dakota has never had a homeless population to speak of so there isn’t an extensive shelter system.
If you don’t have an extremely healthy work ethic, DO NOT COME UP HERE. You won’t be tolerated. Whiners and the lazy are not welcomed with open arms up here. This is the land of sod busters, ranchers and roughnecks. EVERYBODY works and gives their all to that work.
If you expect for govt daddy to take care of you, DO NOT COME UP HERE. In addition to little tolerance for the lazy and the whiners, there is very little tolerance for those who are able bodied on any kind of govt assistance. It is not seen as shameful exactly, as there isn’t a bias against those that need it, but you are expected to work, whether it is the job you love, or cleaning toilets. You don’t sit around and take unemployment if you are capable of working.
If you want to come from California and try and change ND to California, DO NOT COME UP HERE. North Dakotans know it gets cold. They think you are a little slow if you think you need to inform them of that. They are too polite to say it to your face, but they will immediately put you in that “slow” category.
There is no fence around North Dakota. North Dakotans travel and live out of state. They come back or stay because they love North Dakota. They don’t want it to be California. If they wanted to have a California environment they would move to California, so don’t try and change North Dakota to what you left.
If you cannot respect the elderly, women, children, etc, DO NOT COME UP HERE. There is a very strong family attitude here. North Dakotans respect and take care of their elders, women and children and those that are seen as vulnerable. If you come up here to be a rude ass, you will not find your time here a pleasant experience.
If you are a rude ass, DO NOT COME UP HERE. North Dakotans are extremely polite and expect you to be polite as well. North Dakotans look you in the eye, hold doors for you, say thank you. You will be expected to be polite as you are up here as well.
I am not a native North Dakotan. I am originally from California and my husband is from Michigan. When he retired from the military here in North Dakota, we stayed. We love it here. The people, the scenery(you cannot imagine the beauty of a badland sunset), the freedom to live as you choose to live w/o the govt constantly butting into your business.
On the flip-side, it can get colder than one can ever imagine, but those tend to be short bursts of cold. If you are from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc, you won’t find the average winter temp all that much different than the average winter temp in ND.
I LOVE it here. We are a small state, but are all in it together, good or bad. You have to come up here and be willing to become a North Dakotan during your time here vs trying to change ND to what you left.
Writing from the flat (oil-less) part of ND… I agree entirely with this post. There is no “boom” in the Eastern half of the state, but there is no bust either. Jobs are very easy to find here, Bismarck and Fargo always make the top 5 cities in the nation for lowest unemployment. You won’t find the wages like you would out in Western ND (or any major city really), but the cost of living doesn’t really rise much at all… and unlike the oil fields, housing is very easy to find. If you’re willing to live without major city luxuries for a few years, you can definitely get ahead.
I disagree with the welcoming part. I’ve never met more rude locals in my life & I’ve moved around most of my life. I am here with my family…kids & husband…and we work hard. Always have. Locals shun because their “land was invaded” & outsiders are all scared to talk because heaven forbid we offend a local. It’s sad really. We came here because our business was slowing down to the point it could no longer feed our family & house them. We made the decision to find work, wherever & whatever, so we could support our kids without government assistance & all we catch is hell for being here. Locals can kiss it, we dislike it just as much as they do & we are sorry the work just happens to be “in their neck of the woods” but a family’s gotta survive. So just as soon as we’ve “ratholed” enough to buy a ice home on some land somewhere friendlier, we’ll be outta your hair. Until then, I’ll respect you, your land & your family and I hope you can handle doing the same.
We are God-fearing, hard working people! Many of these oil workers live in our parking lots, leaving their pissed-filled jugs on the ground, garbage everywhere. Our crime rate has gone up 600%. Matter of fact in the last 3 months we have had 5 murders that have been proven to be because of the oil boom (one young lady we knew personally). So you can step down from your pedestal and try walking in our shoes! Even with all this happening around us, we are friendly people so I don’t appreciate you bad-mouthing us! You obviously had a bad interaction with someone and who’s to say it was a local, Huh? How do you know you weren’t dealing with someone that moved out here the same as you? We are not going to be rude just because you are from out of state. If you really have a problem here, it is probably because you are dealing with people who are not originally from here.
Very well said! And you are not even a ND native, but I’m glad to hear that you love ND! Newcomers need to see the beautiful green rolling hills in the summer and see the Medora Musical!
Interesting read and articles,,,my neck is sore. Off to the rainbox so I can get ready for my $7.25 an hour gig with Imaginary Commissions..Adios campers…North Dakota…Carhart Central.
The truth: EVERYBODY WANTS A JOB BUT NOBDODY WANTS TO WORK.
I left sunny California for Pennsylvania where I worked in heavy industry for 20+ years.
After that, I decided to move south to Florida where I’ve been for the past 10 years.
You can keep the cold, I’m sure ND people are a hardly lot, as we PA mountain people saw ourselves.
I’ll just stay a beach bum pussy. When the SHTF at least I won’t freeze to death.
FRACKING . Is that a good thing ? By all accounts I’ve heard ( GASLAND for one ) it’s a bad thing . Pure and simple rape of the environment . That’s the North Dakota oil boom . A quick google will show you they’re already having problems there with it . What a damn shame when people have to place survival over conscience ( and pretend to be PROUD of it ). Moral poverty .
“The truth is that Barack Obama simply does not know what he is doing when it comes to jobs. He continues to push for even more job-killing “free trade” agreements that will result in millions more American jobs being shipped overseas.”
Free trade creates jobs. Did you sleep in economics class?
I went to one of the top undergraduate business schools in the nation and on top of that I have a JD and an LLM.
Like you, I once believed in “free trade”, but then I learned the truth.
Michael
Yes. It’s not the label that really matters, but its the ingredients that matter. “Free” for who? “Trade” for what?
I have read a lot of the comments and have to say that any of you bad-mouthing the people and state that you moved to in order to provide for your family, you turn my stomach. Why dont you get down on your knees and thank the Good Lord that you have work and had the means to even come out here? Quit complaining about people being rude to you! If that’s all you have to deal with, then you are blessed!
Here’s what I’ve heard from others around here… Man camps, 9 guys to a trailer. 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. This doesn’t mean every job but from guys I have talked to. Strip club and bars in Williston. Ruining marraiges, tearing apart families. Like someone had commented, this is a job for a single guy, not for families. I have heard that some people near Williston are getting nasty tasty, smelling drinking water. Out-of-towners don’t realize that it is hard enough getting shipments to Walmarts, other grocery stores out here… Now with all these people coming in, the shelves are frequently bare! Just yesterday, all the fresh meats at Walmart were gone. Bread shelves are empty. What happens when gas prices go higher? It means less truck routes, less food. Do you really want to come out here? Yeah you might make some good money for a few months, but is it really worth all the extra trouble? and God forbid, having to deal with “rude” locals? Right Nancy? lol
Get your priorities right brothers and sisters! God should always be priority number One. And in these troubled times, you need to put your trust in Jesus, not on uncertain means of money. Praying that you follow the right path. God Bless