Word: dakotas
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Want to make jokes about North Dakota? Sure, the state's got three times as many cattle as people, and a typical day in January is a balmy 20°F. But the folks who live here, unlike those in many other parts of the country, have jobs. And not only haven't they felt the bite of the housing-market collapse, but their houses have actually inched up in value. The recession, by and large, never made it to places like Bismarck (pop. 60,000). While the local economy is hardly bulletproof, for every bit of bad news - the Bobcat...
...coal go by - and by and by - and you'll start to understand why. Last year was a great one for energy and agriculture: corn, crude oil, coal and wheat are major state exports. The boom helped push energy outfit MDU Resources onto the Fortune 500 (the first North Dakota firm to make the list) and the state budget to a $1.2 billion surplus. State workers around the country are being told to sit at home without pay to trim costs; in North Dakota they're getting 5% raises...
Word has spread. The state's employment agency now fields calls from people in hard-hit cities like Phoenix and Miami who want to know how to get a job in North Dakota. Last winter, facing bleak work prospects in upstate New York, William Phillips boarded a Greyhound bus and three days later landed in Bismarck. He was shocked, he says, when the same day he applied for a job at Fireside Office Solutions, an IT-management firm, he got called in for an interview. With the city's dearth of tech-oriented workers, the company had been looking...
...campers in high school because they are considered potential recruits. Sports camps, which are often held on a college campus and run by college coaches, have limited options to avoid economy-related enrollment drop-offs. Charlie Hoeveler, who runs U.S. Sports/Nike camps in 49 states (sorry, South Dakota) and Puerto Rico, says he braced for the worst when he saw the early enrollment numbers this year. (Read "Stimulus Sparks a Summer Jobs' Comeback...
...health-center grants; and the President, in the Grand Foyer, hailed stimulus jobs "building wind turbines and solar panels." Biden announced plans to fly to Pennsylvania, where he will "highlight Recovery Act broadband investments," while other agencies rolled out press releases regarding new dump-truck engines in Montana, North Dakota school grants and diesel tractors in Utah. (See pictures of Michelle Obama behind the scenes...