Young adults in North Dakota never have had more opportunity. Our state has entered into a time of unprecedented economic growth, thanks to the Bakken.
With economic growth, the need for highly skilled professionals is rapidly increasing. It is imperative that we increase our efforts to disseminate career information to our colleges and universities so that North Dakota can retain our state's young professionals entering the workforce.
The demand for highly qualified professionals is at an all-time high in North Dakota. The high rates of shale gas recovery could result in a million new manufacturing jobs by the end of 2025, with many of them in our state.
Many of the jobs that will be created will be overlooked with the misconception that there are only employment opportunities in the oil and natural gas drilling process. But young, work-ready North Dakota professionals can pick and choose from careers in administration, marketing, advertising, finance and management.
The wide range of opportunities provides choices for people that will let people from a wide range of educational backgrounds earn lucrative incomes. With the workforce gap continuing to get wider, national oil companies will help keep our brightest and hardest workers in our great state of North Dakota
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It's imperative that we begin to look at an aggressive campaign to keep our youngest workforce-eligible generation in North Dakota. By partnering with our colleges and universities, we can fill our workforce gap quickly with students from our own institutions.
The oil and gas industry in North Dakota creates many prospective career choices for our young professionals just exiting college. It is time to begin an aggressive campaign to educate our colleges and universities on all of the amazing opportunities that can be found in our great state.
Matt Jenson
Grand Forks
