But don’t worry about South Dakota’s economy, says booster Jodi Schwan. She and the state DLR say our workforce will grow at triple the nationwide rate:
An annual report from the South Dakota Department of Labor & Regulation found total employment in the state is projected to grow 7.7 percent by 2032, ahead of the national projection of 2.8 percent [Jodi Schwan, “S.D. Workforce Report Projects In-Demand Jobs, Finds Wages Are Up,” Sioux Falls Business, 2025.10.30].
Schwan says her figures come from the DLR’s Labor Market Information Center in August 2025, but her charts on South Dakota’s fastest growing industries and occupations come from DLR reports dated August 2024 and September 2024, back before America went nuts again and sent Kristi Noem and the brownshirts to wage war on our workforce.
South Dakota’s population is growing faster than the national rate, due in equal parts to more babies and more migration, but Pew Research notes that from July 2023 to July 2024, South Dakota was one of eight states where population growth lagged behind its long-term (15-year) trend. And Pew projects that while South Dakota’s population will continue to grow, our growth rate will slow, just like the trend in every other state.
What’s not to like about six (seven? eight?) month winters, rampant racism, chilling effects on civil rights, an extremist legislature, living in a chemical toilet, sacrifice zone, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area?
A collapse of the agriculture sector, new gas-fired power plants, new transmission line, $650 million plus cost overruns for a prison, $240 million plus cost overruns for the Platte-Winner Bridge rebuild, $150M plus cost overruns for a Capitol remodel and at least $2 billion for a boondoggle West River water pipeline but just a $65 million surplus, the end of property taxes and TIFs galore?
Where will the workforce come from?