Youth Council: North Dakota has job opportunities

By DALE WETZEL

posted: 44 DAYS 14 HOURS AGO

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BISMARCK, N.D. -North Dakota could become more attractive to young people by emphasizing its available jobs and playing down its wide-open spaces and "Wild West" image, members of a newly formed state Youth Council suggested.

"There are a lot of other opportunities here for pretty much any field," said John Shaft, a 17-year-old junior at Grand Forks Red River High School. "We're not all farmers."

The 21-member council, made up mostly of young people ages 17 to 24, held its first meeting Tuesday in Bismarck. The Legislature created the council this year to find ways to encourage North Dakota youth to stay in the state after they graduate from high school or college.

Council members suggested more state support for college scholarships is needed, along with improved opportunities to earn college credits in high school.

Businesses should be encouraged to offer more internships or "job shadowing" stints to young people, and more information about career opportunities should be given to students in junior high school, they said.

"In the high school level, I think, if there are some opportunities for some kind of an internship ... going into college, it may help refine what you're going to college for," said Joe Heilman, 24, a North Dakota State University business and accounting graduate who works for Pedigree Technologies, a Fargo inventory management company.

Several members suggested a marketing campaign that would soft-pedal North Dakota's expansive spaces and put more emphasis on companies with large presences in the state, including software giant Microsoft, agribusiness Cargill Inc. and North Dakota's expanding energy sector.

"I think there's a big image of North Dakota kind of being a frozen wasteland almost half the time," said Connor Johnson, 20, a North Dakota State junior. "I had a distant cousin in Oregon ask me, 'So, do you have electricity?'"

The panel's chairman, Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple, said the group will report its recommendations to the 2011 Legislature.

The relative dearth of young people in North Dakota, and the state's growing elderly population, have long been a concern to state policymakers.

The North Dakota State Data Center reported last month that the number of state residents 17 years old or younger declined 11 percent from 2000 to 2008, as did the number of residents aged 25 to 44.

The number of young adults, ages 18 to 24, rose 13 percent, but with fewer younger children aging into that group, its population is expected to fall again, the center said.

Meanwhile, the state's senior population is expected to grow as baby boomers age, it said.

North Dakota's economy, helped by energy development and diversification from agriculture, has one of the nation's lowest unemployment rates, and officials have been concentrating on recruiting workers.

2009-10-14 11:26:08