Considering Relocating to North Dakota

[motormaker]

66.stng,
If wage structure is true, I suspect that ND business's are trying to retain folks from moving out of state. ND population is declining as I recall.

[66.stng]

Originally Posted by motormaker

66.stng,
If wage structure is true, I suspect that ND business's are trying to retain folks from moving out of state. ND population is declining as I recall.

Ok, that's what I was wondering... That's a good incentive BTW

[sunrico90]

Our family was stationed at Grand Forks AFB from 1995 to 1998 and we enjoyed the area and people. Most of the residents of the town of Grand Forks were very friendly to military personnel. The schools are great and shopping was not a problem. Fargo is a less than an hour drive and Minneapolis is about 5 hours. The area wages were not the best (moved from San Antonio TX), but jobs are available.

During our short stay in the area we had a cold snap that took the temperature down to 82 below zero. That is very cold, Iceland was warmer than Grand Forks. Also the 1997 Flood, flooded 75% of the town. But with everyone help and lots of faith they made it back better than ever.

Do to the great people in the area the harsh winters went very fast. Is a great state, just prepare for winter... Best of luck....

[RuralND]

As for the $11 per hour at McDonalds, my guess would be that rate is for Adult management or longer term employees. I know areas like Williston and Minot are struggling to find workers with the oil boom right now.

[Kurt]

I lived in Grand Forks for about 4 years, attending the University. North Dakota is cold, but it is also clean and refreshing. People are down-to-earth. Open spaces make you feel expansive. All of that said, few people make a success of moving from the South to the North because it is simply too cold. But you may be one of them. I myself will stay in the warmer climate now that I am over 55. Good Luck.

[chester]

to 66.sting: For the most part, fast food or service type jobs are minimum wage. But in areas of the state like Williston and Dickinson, they are competing with oil companies that pay kids right out of high school 30,000 to 40,000 a year. Because of the oil boom taking place in western ND, workers are hard to find, and service industries must pay higher wages to compete for workers. Holland Amercian (cruise line reservation center) just raised their beginning salary to $10.00 an hour. I know in Bismarck, a couple fast food places closed up temporarily until they can find more workers to fill the positions. Bismarck had a huge influx of new stores and resturaunts but not enough workers to fill those jobs.

[ebitdadada]

Originally Posted by bowlinggreen

I have 10 years of automotive manufacturing experience, mostly in Quality Engineering. We cannot wait until October for our visit to North Dakota !

http://www.jobsnd.com/ - Call them, they're nice people, being ND was one of only two states in the nation to grow manufacturing employment in the last 5 years (ie. you're probably in demand) they'll likely be happy to hear from you.

I work for a company called Ingersoll Rand (in New Jersey though). We have a big Bobcat (Bobcat is a division of Ingersoll Rand) plant & engineering / new product development plant in Bismarck. (Alledgedly, our Bismarck plant is also the most advanced hydrolics production facility in the world) We had about 700 employees in Bismarck 4 years ago and now we have 1,300 or so so they'res a good chance they're hiring. They'res also a smaller engineering facility in Fargo and Bobcat's world HQ is in Fargo (though I don't think they have engineers at HQ).

Some other companies you might want to look at:

MDU Resources Group: HQ in Bismarck, soon to be ND's first Fortune 500 company - They're in engergy & natural resources development so not sure if quality engineering is their thing but they seem to hire alot of engineering folks in Bismarck so it might work out. www.mduresources.com

Applied Engineering: Offices in Biso (all the cool kids call it Biso or Bis or some other thing I can't remember now ) and Fargo - Consluting firm, amoung other things they do New Product Development / Design & design manufacturing systems http://www.ae-solutions.com/

KLJ Solutions: Consulting firm HQ in Bismarck – they’re mostly Civil, Telecom & Airport engineers but they’re moving big into Biodiesel & other Alternative Energy so they might need quality control engineers. They also seem to be a new agey type of company that hires smart people first and then tries to figure out what to do with them later so that might work out. www.kljeng.com

Phoenix International: Big manufacturer in Fargo. http://www.phoeintl.com/

Alien Technologies: Some sort of high-tech RFID thing in Fargo http://www.alientechnology.com/

As far as Bismarck & Fargo, I don’t know as much about Fargo but Bismarck seems to have a sort of Boom-Town / new tomorrow feel right now (not sure how much is real & how much is hype though). I grew up in Bismarck and every time I go back its amazing (and sort of weird) how much is going on there. The economic arena is one thing but what’s really amazing to me is the cultural aspect: When I went to HS in Bismarck (about 5 years ago) there really wasn’t all that much going on. Now I go back and they’ve somehow spontaneously developed a pretty good local music scene and there are art galleries, coffee shops, and even a few trendy restaurants downtown. They’re also seems to be a small but definitely noticeable influx of former urbanites moving in that’s changing the politics & whatnot. Another indicator is that people my age (20 somethings) who went to HS or college in Bismarck now seem to want to move back / stay in Bismarck – this was a relatively unheard of thing 5 or 10 years ago.

As far as Fargo vs. Bismarck, some people like Fargo better, some like Bismarck better. There are a few obvious tradeoffs though:

Fargo has better shopping, Bismarck has better outdoor recreation

Bismarck is closer to the Badlands & the Rockies, Fargo is closer to Minneapolis

Fargo gets more & better national artists, Bismarck probably (as of about 2 years ago, these things ebb and flow) has a better local music scene.

Bismarck has a better climate (as in warmer, dryer, sunnier), Fargo has better higher educational opportunities (NDSU, Minnesota State Moorehead, & Concordia College – Bismarck has Bismarck State College, the University of Mary, and United Tribes Technical College)

Fargo is closer to Minnesota Lakes (think land of 10,000 and Paul Bunyan), Bismarck is closer to western ND lakes (not as nice as Minnesota lakes but, as a friend of mine pointed out, Western ND lakes have the advantage of experiencing a season called summer) – Western ND lakes can also be quite scenic but in a more rugged way.

Bismarck is naturally quite scenic (Missouri river valley), Fargo is flat, flat, flat, flat (did I mention it is flat) and (aside from inside the city) treeless, and FLAT!! (sorry, ran out of nice things to say about Fargo – Will someone from Fargo help me out please!? )

One last thing, Bismarck & Fargo both have exceptional education systems: If I remember correctly the graduation rate in Bismarck is somewhere north of 90% & the % of HS grads that go on to a four year University is over 80%. I’d imagine Fargo has similar stats. Also, ND has the highest % of HS grads that enter college that actually graduate from college.

Um that’s all I can think of for now. Good luck.

[vnodak]

North Dakota is what it is. I grew up there and most of my life was in Fargo. Speaking of Fargo, watch the movie Fargo and it will give you a good idea what the land looks like and what the winters are like. It is made up of alot of scandanavian and german people. It also has alot of catholics and lutherans. To be honest---the people are mostly "white" but race does not seem to be an issue. The winters are very cold and last long. The summers are hot and humid with mosquitos. The land is flat and they do have tornados. The people are very hard working and honest. The school system is very good and crime is very minimal. We never locked our doors unless we left town. The people are friendly and helpful. The health care system is some of the best in the nation. The air is clean. Unemployment is minimal. Housing and cost of living is cheap and the place is user friendly to new businesses. Lots of outdoor things to do. If you like to grow things, the dirt is black as coal. It is a conservative place and good place to grow up in. I am no longer their as the cold was too hard on this body. So, I think, it all depends on what is important to you and what you want out of life.