There's a reason there's more job oppurtunities in ND. Nobody wants to live there.

Signed,
Former North Dakotan

huh huh huh...job.

where can we see the whole list of states? I coulnd'nt find it on their site anywhere.

We both get contacts from headhunters for jobs in ND frequently. Fargo is the only city that even resembles civilization. That whole flooding frequently while it is still freezing outside it a considerable turn off.

Well I live in VA, and the economy hasn't tanked nearly as much here as many states, but most places have hiring freezes (I'm guessing most of the job ops are in Northen VA). Housing has stayed pretty level. I sure wouldn't want to live in ND though.

@Fujikopez: Why not, Minot?

Because it's a frozen sh_thole 4 months out of the year and a burnt dry sh_thole 4 months out of the year with the remaining 4 months divided into a very nice spring and fall.

Yep, we're screwed here in Michigan. Too many out-of-work autoworkers looking for jobs.

@Bobby Smith:
[www.mainstreet.com]

Well. You would have to live there...

@KHook321:
Making it even worse is that most of the fallout from the auto industry still looms in the future.

@Saboth: I live in VA too. Have been a lifelong resident. Agree on your point about economy being better here. But I'm moving to South Dakota. VA is a fairly nice place to live with some rural areas (largely SW of Roanoke and W of I-81) and very few problems as far as weather goes (with benign winters, unlike northern plains), but it has a HUGE everyday drawback: it's overpopulated. Period. Take a drive on I-95 or I-81 or I-64, most any time of day. Check out rush hour in any DC bedroom community. Any place within 75 miles of DC is hopelessly sardine-packed with vehicles and poor traffic engineering. (Thanks, developers!) Norfolk/Hampton Roads can't be any better. I guess that may be OK if it's a reflection of job availability. And you are also correct about job opportunities in Northern VA: with this administration's propensity for huge government and its plans to hire manymany more civil servants, the congestion north of Fredericksburg is only going to become totally FUBAR. Oh, yeah, VA is also one of the states that have big budget problems, so those commutes to work up north will likely be on pretty rough roads. (Check out I-295 NW of Richmond for a flavor of what I am talking about). Overpopulation-wise, I can only imagine how bad it must be in NJ or CT.

@dhmosquito:

Virginia is beautiful. But my friend lives there and he just got laid off.

I'm from Wyoming - and yeah, there are jobs. Most of them are mechanical, or lower income jobs. Our state is pretty flush, too - my mom works at the elementary school, which has 17 students/class and 2 teacher aides (find that anywhere else!). It just takes a certain type of person to live there - it's ultra conservative, you have to drive everywhere for anything, and it's boring.

But there are jobs, mountains, deserts, and cheap housing (if you stay out of the Jackson Hole area). Not a bad deal.

That's pretty bad when you are #51 out of only 50 states.

Wyoming: It worked for me!

Pittsburgh wasn't cutting it, and I was looking for a programmer or data analyst job that paid more than $12/hr.

Ironically, I had to move to a rural town full of Ranchers and Miners to get a decent tech job.

@Where The Mild Things Are:

By the way, tech job not withstanding, everything that "Where the Mild Things are" is pretty much dead on.

But the eastern half of the state seems dead on. At least your 2 hour drive metro get away is Denver. We got Salt Lake City over here. SnoozeCity, USA.

Nebraska is #4?!

Dammit. The economy will force me to move back home.

Because there is no way in hell I'm moving an hour south to #9 Connecticut.

It's the most job opportunities per capita. When there are only three people in the state, you don't need that many jobs to be #1.

@bohemian: They might have plenty of jobs, but I don't think my wife would be happy if I came home with blood on my shirt after working the wood chipper all day.

@Where The Mild Things Are: I wouldn't say that most are lower income jobs, just that they're dangerous.

Its like the crab fishers. Yeah you might make money but you might die. Being a roughneck is pretty profitable. My friends with high school degrees make more then I do and I have a professional job. Of course I don't have to worry about missing fingers and toes when I'm clamping together casing.

Anyways, living in the State I sometimes wonder about these thing just because I've seen it first hand. Yeah a year or two ago I wouldn't of batted an eye at talk of Wyoming being a good place for a job. The housing industry was insane. We were having such a boom in the oil and gas industries and there were/are literally boom towns again. Trailer houses full of oil workers and their families 'cause we couldn't build houses fast enough and as always everything spun out of there. I work for the State and one of the biggest problems we had was finding a place that would give us a hotel at the CONUS rate (if they didn't have a trailer home they'd put up the oil workers in hotels). One of my co-workers was even told by a manger one time that she could rent the parking lot out for what we'd pay for rooms.

One of the other "funny" spin-offs of all of this was that the restaurants and fast food places were having a hell of a time even staying open. They were paying pretty well too just because they were trying to compete with the oil and gas fields but even then they can't really compete and so they couldn't stay staffed.

Its not that way anymore. Yeah I think that we're a bit more insulated then what I hear around the rest of the country but a lot of its dried up. The oil and gas jobs are going away (price of oil and gas is down) so the housing industry pretty much stopped like the rest of the country. My understanding is there is still more work then other places but even then its not like it was. We started noticing it when we had no problem getting rooms at the CONUS rate for any hotel property. We're getting letters and e-mails all the time trying to get us to come. We're not though because the State is under a hiring freeze and all agencies are supposed to cut their budget by 10% (including travel). All jokes about State workers aside, this is the first time I've ever even heard talk of possible layoffs. Every place I do go all they talk about is how they've never seen anything like it. It was quick too.

I think it took awhile but from what I've seen I think that the recession has hit Wyoming. I wonder how old this data is because I wouldn't characterize it as that rosey of a picture anymore. If its just that much better then the rest of the country I guess I'm luckier then I though.

Protip from someone that has lived in Wyoming for 19 years: Stay out. Just stay out.

@Rctdaemon: Old man Cheney tell you that?

My company is hiring professionals in most states.

@KHook321: Not JUST out-of-work autoworkers. The fallout from the auto industry has pretty much hit every sector in Michigan.

For those who may not be aware, Michigan's economy is pretty much centered on the auto industry -- specifically, GM, Ford, and Chrysler. Not just the "Big Three," but their Tier One, Tier Two, Tier Three, etc. suppliers. Law firms' biggest clients? Big Three and their suppliers. Paper companies' biggest clients? Ditto. Steel's biggest clients? Ditto again. And on and on ad nauseam.

When the auto companies started cutting their budgets years ago (and every time throughout history), the first thing they do is tell their suppliers and third-party services (law firms, etc.) to lower their prices or lose their contracts. Suppliers then turn around and tell the same thing to their suppliers and third-party services...and the chain continues. When auto companies cut back on supplies and demand dramatic price cuts, how do you think suppliers are saving money? When auto companies and suppliers cut back and fire law firms, what do you think happens to all those people whose job was their accounts? In turn, all these people who have lost their jobs or had their wages/hours cut are not spending like they used to...no movies, no going out to eat, no shopping, no frills (start cutting their own grass, doing their own taxes, etc.). It affects every aspect of the State's economy, and Michigan has already been feeling the effects for several years.

In the legal industry alone, jobs for legal secretaries are not just being applied for by the thousands of legal secretaries that are out of work, but also by the thousands of paralegals and associate attorneys that are also out of work. People are desperate and will take anything they can get...and so will the 1,000 plus people who also applied for that same job. A friend of mine was a supervisor in HR for over 10 years...and had been out of work for over two. She finally got a job working as a part-time office clerk for a small company, and she was SO excited that FINALLY someone didn't tell her she was over qualified and reject her outright. Employers pretty much have a bottomless well of desperate, available, and qualified applicants to choose from.

It's not just autoworkers that are out of work...it is everybody and from every sector. It's scary.

@igotmeajd: Thank you for explaining this. I'm in Michigan too and most people outside of Michigan just don't understand how the failing auto companies affect every single sector of business. I'm so tired of people wishing the companies would fail. 51 out of 50, what a joy. Yes, I'm one of those looking for work too. Today the company my husband works for is cutting hours and people (no they are not related at all to the auto industry). I can only hope he still has his job at the end of the day.

Wyoming's Dept. of Corrections routinely has job fairs here in Michigan every few months.

@igotmeajd: I live in North Carolina and recently I was in a meeting where there were 4 people and all of them had roots in Michigan but had moved down south for work. Folks are voting with their feet.

@tande04: I agree. I think the mineral jobs are declining, and will continue to do so, as the big companies slow production. And seeing as the vast majority of tax revenues come from mineral taxes (we have no income tax here), that affects the State. A lot. I suppose what those of us in Wyoming are saying (I'm also a state worker) is that it's not quite as rosy as the numbers indicate. A bit better, maybe, but only just.

@dhmosquito: Oh are you referring to what I like to call the patchwork quilt section of 295? Yeah, it's bad. Also, there are tons of jobs in NoVA! The government loves to spend money! Be prepared for a traffic nightmare. Going 5 miles to work can easily take 45 min. If you live in VA and work in the District, your commute is pretty much a min of 1 hour each way.

North Dakota, Virginia, Wyoming, all Right to Work states. Go figure.

@Ihaveasmartpuppy: I know what you mean. I also do not understand the animosity. The automakers are not the ones taking billions and handing out bonuses. Also, the automakers are the only ones being made to jump through flaming hoops for the money.

@tankertodd: You're right, there are many who are fleeing this state. Sadly, not everyone can. Like divorced people with children who can't get the court to approve the move out of state. Some spent all their money trying to save their house from foreclosure, and now have none left for a move. I know a lot of people who cannot afford to move now, but who vow to move as soon as they can (even if the economy is good by then, because they're afraid that it will all just happen again and are tired of being tied to the ups and downs of the auto industry...even those who don't work in the auto industry).

@Saboth: @HogwartsAlum: Here too. Virginia isn't getting hit quite as hard, thank goodness. People are still getting laid off, so it's happening. I being one of the victims. But for the most part, people are bouncing back eventually, and there are more opportunities here.

Yes, northern VA has a ton of people and the roads are jammed, but Virginia has a very unique position - people from D.C., Maryland and Virginia are commuting back and forth. So you do get people from Virginia who work in D.C., and people who work in Maryland who live in D.C., and all kinds of situations, and that's where a lot of the congestion factors.

I don't think it's worse than any other major metro area, really.

Of course there are jobs in ND when many people give it such a rap and won't live there. I thought the same about it when I moved there, but while the winters and springs are intense you *guess it* wear a coat and work inside, and pay tax dollars that go into flood control. The mild summers see a surge of Mexicans (in particular) and other migrant workers who seem to be clearly taking more advantage of our economy here than many of their American counterparts. The people especially who knock immigrants, then knock the rural, local economies that support themselves during hard times... absolutely laughable. If you don't want the jobs, isn't it great that there are so many of the "second class" willing to do the jobs (we)'re too good for? As an average US citizen who packed up her BA in writing and moved, I've had no problem finding a job in data/editing. Although there are largely construction and agricultural jobs available, these should only be a limitation to you when your head's where your ass should be.

I live in North Dakota. Yes, there's lots of jobs here, but the vast majority of new jobs are Wal-Marts and other big box stores and the oil fields out in the western part of the state.

Plus, we are a Right to Work state and the state legislature just shot down a bill that would have ended discrimination in employment and housing based on sexual orientation. So if you're gay and working in ND, you can be fired for it.

I love North Dakota... just not the people running it.

@bohemian: If you've never sandbagged in 8 inches of snow one day and 4 inches of mud the next, you haven't lived.

So, there are 3 links in that short blurb, but there isn't one to the article? Come on...

[gallery.mainstreet.com]

@igotmeajd: I'm hoping we can weather this storm and enough people will move out of state that we can get some peace and quiet back! Was too damned crowded here. :)

In all seriousness, it is a scary scary place to live right now.

@Chumas: Not to mention there's no people, and not a whole lot to do. Although sometimes having no people around seems like a good thing.

@robotrevolution: Its not just housing based on sexual orientation. In ND, its illegal for an unmarried couple to be cohabiting apartment.

Wow. Oregon is right after Michigan. I would not have guessed.

@s73v3r: Most of the open jobs must be cooking meth in small towns because that a lot of what I hear about.

I live in Fargo and can't wait to move sometime soon!

@robotrevolution: Agreed! I just wish that a 500 year flood wouldn't come 12 years after a 100 year flood. Seems like the math is off a bit there.

@Fujikopez: Some of us really enjoy it here. We're also glad when people who DON'T enjoy it leave. It makes the state much more pleasant. :)

@PageLurco: I think another side to it is that if you do lose your job, that's one more job in your field that's off the market, and you have to evaluate whether your area has the opportunities to offer you another job.

I think it's just that North Dakota doesn't seem like an extremely exciting place to live. But I bet it's beautiful during the summer and fall.

@qwickone: Yup, my husband works only about 6-7 miles from our home and it takes him anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour to get to work or home depending on traffic, weather, the angle of the sun, and if the wind is coming softly from the southeast.

We live in NoVA and I work in the NW corner of the District and it takes me 45 minutes if there are no other cars on the road (when I come in at 6 a.m. on a weekend) but at least 1hr if everything goes smoothly on a weekday since I start earlier than most people.

When I'm actually coming in for a normal 9-5 shift? It can be two hours, easily. And it's around 15 miles.

@dhmosquito: Norfolk/Hampton Roads is almost a bigger nightmare than Northern Virginia because at least up here we take care of our roads a little better and have some public transit. Down there? I live in NoVA, work in D.C., and I'm terrified of the traffic down there.

VA might have jobs, but not in the industry I'm trying to break into, nor in the one that my husband is in.

But that's what I get for being a media studies major/filmmaker and marrying a residential architect.

But yeah, our job market and it's boom are very industry specific.

Also, southern Virginia is NOT having any kind of boom like that, it's dying pretty badly from the loss of it's manufacturing base.

@Where The Mild Things Are: I grew up there and have maintained my ties over the years, and while it's conservative in plenty of areas, if you stick to places like Cheyenne, Laramie, & Jackson, you'll find a broader range of political views.

And as for boring, Cheyenne has grown in terms of entertainment and culture since I was a kid. It's not NYC, but it's better than it was.

@ohnoes: Yeah, and he lives under the same bridge as you.