How can North Dakotans oil economy collapse, yet Bismarck still only has 2% unemployment rate.

[desertdetroiter]

Originally Posted by Labonte18

Agreed.. Would you stay there through a winter if you knew basically you had no hope of getting a job and were from out of state? Leave, come back during better times.

But.. The one part of your theory that doesn't seem to hold up quite as well, and there may be an explanation.. What about all the ancillary positions? You've got buttloads of people who came in from out of state to work oil.. They've gone.. So, now, Bob's Burgers doesn't need to employ 20 people to cover the business, so.. They cut back to only having 10 employees. Those 10 they laid off WERE state residents, who are now unemployed.

It's not like everyone left. So, something still doesn't quite add up here for me.

Your Bob's Burgers example is appropriate here....

We convoy a lot thru the Permian Basin of Texas quite a bit, and at the height of the oilfield boom, the restaurants were hiring everyone they could get their hands on and the salaries were pretty high...reflecting the demand and local cost of living.

The boom crashed about two years ago, but interesting enough, the food places haven't really let up. The Whataburger that we often stop at is BEGGING for workers and managers almost as if the boom never stopped. And the weird thing is, it's nowhere near as crowded as it used to be. I remember when it was so packed that oilfield guys would be in line outside waiting to get inside. Not the case anymore.

But the residual effect of the bust hasn't really been all that bad. The transient guys all went back home, but it's still left enough work for the locals to have plenty to do out in the oil patch. It's just not insane anymore.

Maybe that's the case in North Dakota. It's not booming, but just humming along steadily. That's probably better and more preferable to a boom anyway.

[Yuptag]

Originally Posted by lovecrowds

https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/nd_bismarck_msa.htm

It is so odd, how North Dakota is in the midst of such a massive, massive oil collapse and yet the unemployment rate in Bismarck which is the epicenter of state government and where much the oil companies regional were located still only has 2 percent unemployment.

https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/nd_bismarck_msa.htm

Fargo unemployment slid to 1.9%.

I find it so odd how a state can such massive job losses and yet unemployment hardly increases.

Maybe . . . people moved to the state to take jobs in oil, people left when the jobs disappeared.