More than 23,000 North Dakotans left the state during the 1990s, according to the state's Job Service North Dakota, mostly the young and educated. Paradoxically, North Dakota's unemployment is a scant 2.4 percent - far lower than what is considered full employment. People who can't find jobs mostly just leave. That hurts efforts to bring in new jobs. Manufacturers will not locate where there is no labor pool, and workers won't move or remain where there are no jobs.
More young people trickle out of the state.
It's occurring in large measure because of a lack of opportunity. . . . The challenge is to get more and better-paying jobs, particularly in the rural areas and small towns. Adding value to agriculture products means, for instance, processing the durum wheat that is the state's staple crop into pasta, its main use. Shrinking population affects the hospitals, farm-equipment dealers and even churches, which see their bases disappear and close, adding to the process. Others wonder whether the lure of friendly, small-town life in an area abundant in hunting and recreation may not tempt telecommuters back to the Plains.