North Dakota Oil Boom Produces Labor Shortage

Written By: Bruce Walker  |  Posted: Wednesday, January 11th, 2012

            The current political debate over "jobs" ignores a vital component of jobs and the economy: Government make-work jobs are simply another form of welfare; jobs produced by the private sector that help the economy are productive jobs. In places like North Dakota, where the economy is now benefiting from an oil boom, the importance of genuinely productive labor has been understood from the beginning of frontier America. The winter wheat farmers of the Dakotas led an unglamorous like of rising before dawn, eating a big breakfast by a hard-working wife who herself had worked long, hard days, and then turning the land into crops. These families created wealth; they work produced goods and services that people wanted.

            Perhaps no job in America is more important than generating energy. Yet many parts of West Virginia today have high unemployment because the environmental regulations have made it virtually impossible or cost-prohibitive to extract coal, despite the fact that our nation has a huge reserve of this proven fuel. Oil, however, is considered the most vital fossil fuel for our nation.

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