Governor Kristi Noem’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget proposes adding just 5.7 new full-time equivalents to the 14,052.9 FTEs allocated to this year’s state payroll.
To make sure there’s plenty of room for those 5.7 new FTEs, Noem’s Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman just Christmas-massacred 22 state Job Service jobs:
As Gov. Kristi Noem continues a $6.5 million advertising campaign to attract more workers to South Dakota, her Department of Labor and Regulation is cutting positions and closing offices across the state, according to an email obtained by South Dakota News Watch.
Labor Secretary Marcia Hultman sent an email to South Dakota Job Services offices Dec. 14 informing them of “22 reductions in force resulting in office closures and the elimination of positions.
…The layoffs and closures taking effect Feb. 8, 2024, include:
- Job services positions in Brookings, Winner and Madison will be eliminated and the offices will be closed.
- Employment service assistant positions will be eliminated in Aberdeen, Mitchell, Spearfish and Vermillion.
- Offices in Aberdeen, Mitchell, Pierre, Spearfish and Vermillion will be open by appointment only.
- Secretary positions will be eliminated in Rapid City and Watertown as well as one job services position in Lake Andes [Stu Whitney, “SD Labor Department to Cut Job Services Staff, Close Offices,” South Dakota News Watch, 2023.12.15].
The redoubtable Senate boss Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Lake Kampeska) gets the soundbite of the week saying government doesn’t need to help job seekers:
State Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, a Watertown Republican who also serves on Commerce and Energy, downplayed the impact that the closures will have on people finding employment.
“If you need the government’s help in finding a job, you’ll drive by 30 ‘Help Wanted’ signs on your way to the (job service) office,” he told News Watch via text message [Whitney, 2023.12.15].
Of course, that soundbite comes from an established, self-employed professional who has no problem finding work for himself when he’s not occupied in Pierre. State employment agencies exist to help lower-skilled citizens who lack Schoenbeck’s and my education, experience, connections, and other resources that make finding work easier. With South Dakota short of workers, South Dakota Job Services exists to help build the workforce by bringing people in from the margins and supporting the education and training they need to get into their first good jobs and remain in the workforce. That work isn’t as easy or fun as dressing up like a plumber and and making comedy skits to lure people of much greater means to move here and provide campaign fodder, but maybe the state should be spending more money on services that help people move up from our economically underserved ranks rather than putting up song-and-dance videos to get already well-off people to move here from other states.
Or, to put it another way: imagine if instead of spending millions of dollars to produce videos showing what a cute but bad plumber/nurse/accountant she is, Governor Noem produced videos showing people how to actually become good plumbers, nurses, and accountants.
Just one more demonstration of low IQ in South Dakota government.
Job creators? We don’t need no stinkin job creators. How come, of all the plumbers in the business that naturally show the crack of their behinds, grandma NOem only shows hers to Lew? asking for a friend.
These jobs were funded by the big covid money waste of Mr. President Uncle Joe Biden, and perhaps you fellows failed to notice that we here in the Great State of South Dakota have amongst the lowest rates of slackards in the nation. Like Mr. Schoenbeck said on the Twitters, “you have to drive by 30 help wanted signs on your way to the unemployment office.”
The gnashing of teeth on this is just libbie angst. These fellows were just handing out money to slackards who were trying to “show” they couldn’t find a job. You want a job? Call grudznick. I’ll find you a job. That Freedom outfit can find you a job.
Unless, you are just unemployable or lazy, and then there is no excuse.
There may be no amount of money some employers can pay workers who already know the risks of working for The Man. So, probably not coincidental to Mrs. Noem’s political grandstanding is the flight of talent from the state and calls by its entire congressional delegation to ease immigration rules. Noem’s christianic religionists are apparently void of any compassion and choose to blame Democrats for inflation as labor shortages drive wage increases. It’s hypocritheocracy on meth.
Lar, you know darned well it doesn’t take a lot of money for our common good friend Bob to work for The Man, and you know grudznick hisownself has taken some money for services to The Man. We all serve The Man, in one way or another. Those of us who strive to slap down the overgodders know it cuts into our slice of the pie from The Man, but we still want our pie. Look at Bob. And fer gosh sakes, our old friend Bill, former friend of this blogging space who has made millions from The Man. Millions!!! Bill had a price.
Hey, there are cheap properties in Faith, Bison, McLaughlin and Midland so people working at the Ramen factory in Belle Fourche have easy commutes.
The blowing dust in West Rapid today makes life there a bowl of cherries, for sure!
My blog post today is about the successes of our guaranteed income project and the rise of equity in a state whose rainy day fund is three times bigger than South Dakota’s.
Millions for the Governor’s image flossing, not one cent for job placement. We want the out of state folks to find their dream job at Wal Mart.
Rapid City and much of West River will reach the mid to high 50s all week so the grassland fire danger index will be extreme by Wednesday and maybe Mrs. Noem will channel Bill Janklow by micromanaging incident commanders before you know it.
Which blog post, Lar? This one?
Those of us west of Rapid City, or south, suffer immensely clean air, and the wind feathers our hair and blows the leaves out of our yards. And we like pitted cherries, and maybe the maraschino kind. Lordy, I can eat a jar of those in one sitting.
Mrs. Noem is struggling to recruit first responders and emergency personnel of every stripe because freedom?
Socialized air service? How conservative!
https://www.keloland.com/news/capitol-news-bureau/states-airport-funding-cant-cover-future-needs/
THE issue to recruit workers is to recruit immigrants. The US has a worker deficit of 450,000 workers per year that increases to 950,000 annually until 2034. It’s the US demographic pyramid. Republicans were once a party supporting immigration to suppress labor wages. Now the republicans, the christian nationalists, do not know what they want other to oppose whatever is going on.
SD agencies should not be able to carry funding for FTE positions they have not filled. Agency heads use these appropriated funds as department head slush funds. Agencies should have 30 days to fill an empty FTE position or back-date to the vacancy and return the appropriated funding to the SD treasury. You want good and accountable government – then begin managing for it.
grudz. FYI, the unemployment numbers in states are determined by the number of people ABLE to claim unemployment benefits. SD is one of the MOST DIFFICULT states there are to successfully claim benefits, as well as paying among the lowest amounts. So the low SD unemployment numbers are actually a reflection of the high rejection rate of benefits for those who are unemployed as well as the degree to which it’s just not worth the effort to even try to.
While I have no hope that the Republicans and Democrats in Congress will ever work together to develop a sane immigration system, it is the obvious solution to solve our labor issues. I am 99% confident that the parents of the kids who received child care services from the soon to close Apple Tree centers in Sioux Falls give a rat’s butt if some or most of the staff speak a first language other than English.
I understand that some might feel a low unemployment number might mean you could trim the workforce in job services a bit. In my experience in the job field, that is wrong. The lower the unemployment number goes, the harder it is to place new workers. It takes more time and effort per job seeker to place a new person in a job as you reach full employment. . There are a number of reasons for this, but the main one is that the remaining workers on the sidelines tend to be harder to place. It may be something in their past work history, like a tendency to be fired or it might be a disability. Sometimes it’s a criminal history. These are people who really need a lot of one-on-one help and encouragement. They often lack computer skills or handy computers, so they may require help with job applications. I would spend hours with one person as wee filled out applications. A number of people needed rides to an interview. I’d give them a ride. Another reason is that employers would rather poach workers from other jobs than hire one of the long-term unemployed. One thing I did was work with employers who had a good history of taking on these long-term unemployed people if there were any problems that came up to keep my clients on the job.