A couple weeks ago, KELO-TV reported that South Dakota has 29,000 job openings advertised online in the state’s SDWorks database. This morning that figure is 28,294.
Of the 15,797 openings that indicate the hirer’s industry sector, 39% of the open jobs are in health care and social service. Another 13% are in retail, and 10% are in manufacturing.
The most in-demand jobs are in health care: we’re short nurses, doctors, and physical and occupational therapists. South Dakota also needs more people to move merchandise, both literally and sales-ally:
Amidst the harvest, farmers either have all the help they need or aren’t advertising through the state for help (because you don’t go looking for undocumented workers through the Department of Labor, right?): job listings for farming, fishing, and forestry rank behind 20 other occupation groups in terms of the number of job opportunities offered to South Dakotans.
But agriculture generates a lot more jobs that aren’t literally out in the field. Giant ag co-op CHS Inc. alone has 167 openings listed with the state, placing them among the ten firms with the most job openings. John Deere dealer C&B Operations LLC has another 160 openings. But the health care providers on that list— Sanford, Avera, and Monument hospital systems, plus Good Sams nursing homes and Aya traveling nurses—together are ready to put over 12 times as many South Dakotans to work.
Minnehaha County has 22.24% of the state’s population, but our largest county is advertising 32.26% of the state’s job openings, indicating the big city’s reliance on commuter labor. Neighboring Lincoln County has 7.35% of the state’s population but only 5.45% of the state’s job openings, indicating it provides launchpads and sleeping quarters for many of those Minnehaha commuting workers. Along that same line, the other four counties adjoining Minnehaha—Moody, Lake, McCook, and Turner—all have higher proportions of state population than they do of current job openings.
A similar imbalance exists around Rapid City. Pennington County has 12.32% of the state’s population but is offering 16.00% of the job openings. The counties adjoining the populous western half of Pennington—Lawrence, Meade, and Custer—all have higher proportions of the state population than of the total job openings statewide (though the difference isn’t much in Custer County, which has 0.94% of our population and 0.91% of our current job openings).
| Area Name | Job Openings 2021.10.29 | population | openings /1,000 population |
% of SD openings | % of SD population |
| Minnehaha | 9,097 | 197,214 | 46.1 | 32.26% | 22.24% |
| Pennington | 4,511 | 109,222 | 41.3 | 16.00% | 12.32% |
| Lincoln | 1,537 | 65,161 | 23.6 | 5.45% | 7.35% |
| Brown | 1,269 | 38,301 | 33.1 | 4.50% | 4.32% |
| Codington | 1,128 | 28,325 | 39.8 | 4.00% | 3.19% |
| Hughes | 1,122 | 17,765 | 63.2 | 3.98% | 2.00% |
| Brookings | 1,098 | 34,375 | 31.9 | 3.89% | 3.88% |
| Yankton | 970 | 23,310 | 41.6 | 3.44% | 2.63% |
| Davison | 727 | 19,956 | 36.4 | 2.58% | 2.25% |
| Lawrence | 721 | 25,768 | 28.0 | 2.56% | 2.91% |
| Beadle | 701 | 19,149 | 36.6 | 2.49% | 2.16% |
| Union | 408 | 16,811 | 24.3 | 1.45% | 1.90% |
| Clay | 355 | 14,967 | 23.7 | 1.26% | 1.69% |
| Meade | 308 | 29,852 | 10.3 | 1.09% | 3.37% |
| Lake | 282 | 11,059 | 25.5 | 1.00% | 1.25% |
| Custer | 256 | 8,318 | 30.8 | 0.91% | 0.94% |
| Charles Mix | 224 | 9,373 | 23.9 | 0.79% | 1.06% |
| Tripp | 182 | 5,624 | 32.4 | 0.65% | 0.63% |
| Grant | 176 | 7,556 | 23.3 | 0.62% | 0.85% |
| Roberts | 160 | 10,280 | 15.6 | 0.57% | 1.16% |
| Todd | 157 | 9,319 | 16.8 | 0.56% | 1.05% |
| Bon Homme | 154 | 7,003 | 22.0 | 0.55% | 0.79% |
| Brule | 154 | 5,247 | 29.4 | 0.55% | 0.59% |
| McCook | 140 | 5,682 | 24.6 | 0.50% | 0.64% |
| Butte | 135 | 10,243 | 13.2 | 0.48% | 1.16% |
| Hand | 134 | 3,145 | 42.6 | 0.48% | 0.35% |
| Hutchinson | 133 | 7,427 | 17.9 | 0.47% | 0.84% |
| Moody | 131 | 6,336 | 20.7 | 0.46% | 0.71% |
| Marshall | 128 | 4,306 | 29.7 | 0.45% | 0.49% |
| Kingsbury | 122 | 5,187 | 23.5 | 0.43% | 0.58% |
| Spink | 112 | 6,361 | 17.6 | 0.40% | 0.72% |
| Fall River | 108 | 6,973 | 15.5 | 0.38% | 0.79% |
| Deuel | 106 | 4,295 | 24.7 | 0.38% | 0.48% |
| Douglas | 102 | 2,835 | 36.0 | 0.36% | 0.32% |
| Gregory | 100 | 3,994 | 25.0 | 0.35% | 0.45% |
| Walworth | 99 | 5,315 | 18.6 | 0.35% | 0.60% |
| Potter | 85 | 2,472 | 34.4 | 0.30% | 0.28% |
| Hamlin | 72 | 6,164 | 11.7 | 0.26% | 0.70% |
| Day | 65 | 5,449 | 11.9 | 0.23% | 0.61% |
| Haakon | 64 | 1,872 | 34.2 | 0.23% | 0.21% |
| Jerauld | 60 | 1,663 | 36.1 | 0.21% | 0.19% |
| Miner | 51 | 2,298 | 22.2 | 0.18% | 0.26% |
| Stanley | 50 | 2,980 | 16.8 | 0.18% | 0.34% |
| Edmunds | 46 | 3,986 | 11.5 | 0.16% | 0.45% |
| Dewey | 46 | 5,239 | 8.8 | 0.16% | 0.59% |
| Aurora | 41 | 2,747 | 14.9 | 0.15% | 0.31% |
| Bennett | 33 | 3,381 | 9.8 | 0.12% | 0.38% |
| Mellette | 32 | 1,918 | 16.7 | 0.11% | 0.22% |
| Lyman | 30 | 3,718 | 8.1 | 0.11% | 0.42% |
| Turner | 29 | 8,673 | 3.3 | 0.10% | 0.98% |
| Faulk | 29 | 2,125 | 13.6 | 0.10% | 0.24% |
| Perkins | 27 | 2,835 | 9.5 | 0.10% | 0.32% |
| Jones | 26 | 917 | 28.4 | 0.09% | 0.10% |
| Buffalo | 24 | 1,948 | 12.3 | 0.09% | 0.22% |
| Hyde | 23 | 1,262 | 18.2 | 0.08% | 0.14% |
| Sanborn | 20 | 2,330 | 8.6 | 0.07% | 0.26% |
| Clark | 20 | 3,837 | 5.2 | 0.07% | 0.43% |
| Hanson | 17 | 3,461 | 4.9 | 0.06% | 0.39% |
| McPherson | 17 | 2,411 | 7.1 | 0.06% | 0.27% |
| Jackson | 16 | 2,806 | 5.7 | 0.06% | 0.32% |
| Sully | 10 | 1,446 | 6.9 | 0.04% | 0.16% |
| Campbell | 8 | 1,377 | 5.8 | 0.03% | 0.16% |
| Corson | 6 | 3,902 | 1.5 | 0.02% | 0.44% |
| Ziebach | 3 | 2,413 | 1.2 | 0.01% | 0.27% |
| Harding | 2 | 1,311 | 1.5 | 0.01% | 0.15% |
| Oglala Lakota | 0 | 13,672 | 0.0 | 0.00% | 1.54% |
| State Total | 28,199 | 886,667 | 31.8 |
(Note that the 28,199 total is less than the 28,294 reported above, perhaps because a handful of jobs postings don’t have a recognizable county.)
South Dakota has 31.8 job openings for every 1,000 people. Minnesota, with over 205,000 job openings statewide and a population of 5.7 million, has 35.9 job openings per 1,000 inhabitants.
Hughes County has the highest ratio of openings to population in the state, 63.2. Minnehaha, Hand, Yankton, and Pennington are all in the 40s. Ten other counties (Codington, Beadle, Davison, Jerauld, Douglas, Potter, Haakon, Brown, Tripp, and just barely Brookings) beat the state ratio. 51 of our 66 counties are offering fewer jobs per 1K population than the state average.
From my readings on the subject this summer, SD employs more traveling nurses to any other state – 27,000 jobs/year. That’s not as a proportional number – that’s as the gross number in regard to ranking. As a per/100,000 proportion, it’s not even a contest. Traveling nurses, on average, move from one job/site to another every 90 days +/-. Typically, they are younger folks, mainly but not exclusively single, and out to get experience in not just their profession, but in the various regional cultural aspects of the country.
The state’s lame idea that South Dakota’s biggest industry is agriculture hasn’t been supported by any facts in generations.
That’s before accounting for the federal and state agricultural subsidies.
Nice work and thanks, Corey.
But … your Governor touts her state as being “the best state to find a job”, which means you can’t and won’t pay people to live here.
-Also, she claims “top 3 for economic health”, which means employers pay so little they make bank and their workers suffer.
-And, “One of the best states that provide opportunities for working moms.”, which means again, nobody can afford to work here, so opportunities abound.
-Noem brags that SD is “Top 10 for health care”, which is just a lie unless she’s talking about how much money Doctors make, without having to help people that need Medicaid.
-Top ten for “work environment for nurses”. The role of the RN in primary care is to provide nursing care to a diverse group of patients and families in a community-based setting using the knowledge, skills and abilities of the nursing profession. She must mean that since SD has little to no diversity, the hardest part of nursing (dealing with people that look, act, and think differently) isn’t a problem. However, the personal rewards are poor because of it.
-She expounds, “We have about 700 people on unemployment — marking one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation. And we currently have 40 jobs available for every person on unemployment.” But also, the highest rejection rate for people that need to claim their unemployment insurance benefits. That’s a statewide crime, yet to be investigated.
Kristi Noem’s spokesperson (Ian Furry) is a shallow, con artist who found a cushy job in a state full of Republicans, who don’t think or care about politics.
.
Well…Employment/UnEmployment has never been much of a Republican issue. They feel that if they just do all they can to manipulate the system to maximize profits that employment takes care of itself in a survival of the fittest environment. To Republicans, its not an issue worth spending any money on.
Hey, you can start at Sanford when your 12 right?
Farmers may be looking for extra income as China has figured a way to use less soybean imports. “China’s scientists say they have found a way to create animal feed from carbon monoxide on an industrial scale – a breakthrough that could help reduce the country’s dependence on imported soybeans.”
Let’s create 3 jobs in Harding County!
Lots of room there to create anything, software, hey, even 3 Full time Party recruiters!
3 Progressive Party recruiters! in Harding County.
Of course!