Dakonomics

By Rachel Leingang
Contributing Writer

As proud North Dakota residents commonly boast, the state’s unemployment rate is consistently the lowest in the nation.
However, the low unemployment numbers fail to reflect a common problem among North Dakota workers: underemployment or the need to work multiple jobs.
The Department of Commerce’s Division of Economic Development and Finance acknowledges the problem, stating that “North Dakota consistently has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, but this number is deceiving. North Dakota has a significant amount of underemployed workers, or individuals working in a job well below their skill level or training.”
A 2008 NDSU study found that North Dakota and Nebraska led the nation with 9.7 percent of employed people working more than one job. The reasons for this, said the study, include low wages, limited benefits and seasonal work like agricultural employment.
Tom Pantera is among those who have worked multiple jobs to pay the bills. Until 2006, Pantera worked as a reporter at The Forum. After being asked to leave, he had to find immediate work that would pay somewhere close to his previous salary.
Now, Pantera is the managing editor of the FM Extra, an adjunct professor at MSUM and, until recently, worked as a telephone translator at Communication Services for the Deaf.
“I was working three jobs for two years and it was purely a question of having enough income to support me and some others I was supporting,” Pantera said. “You hear about how low unemployment is here, and it is relatively low, but the dirty little secret of this town is underemployment. This town has all the seven to eight-dollar-an-hour jobs it’s ever going to need.”
One way that workers can find support and guidance is through Job Service North Dakota. Programs like the Workforce Investment Act, classroom and on-the-job training, internships and apprenticeships may provide a path out of low-wage working.
“But for some individuals, training is not an option right now,” said Marty Aas, customer service area manager at Job Service North Dakota. “There may be family issues like they have to care for their family. One of the problems that we see, and I don’t know if there’s a solution, is that people need training and want to go to training and it’d be good for them, but they can’t afford to. They can’t afford to take 2-3 months off to go to training because they have to pay the bills. So that’s kind of tough.”
Also, with a small staff and large volume of people to assist, time and resources to assist job-seekers can run short. “Our traffic in the last week has averaged about 1,400 people coming in per week,” Aas said. “But in the first half of 2009, it shot up to about 2,600. And with a staff of 27, that’s a lot. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a lot of time to sit down and talk with individuals one-on-one, it just wasn’t possible. We were doing the minimum, helping people get registered online, putting their resume on the computer, filing for unemployment insurance. How do I explain to one person all of our services when there are 5-6 other people waiting to see me?”
Pantera, who used Job Service to find employment after leaving his job, appreciated the services provided.  “I think Job Service does the best it can, I know that their services are good,” Pantera said. “I know that if you don’t have a computer, you can go there and use their computers. Their application process is very good. They’re helpful. But at the end of the day, applying for a job is just the first step, it’s being able to get a job. For my money, I’m amazed that Job Service does what it does.”
Cory Tolliver, a recent MSUM graduate with a degree in broadcast journalism, is in the process of finding a second job. He is currently working at HQ Productions, a company that specializes in Internet advertising production. “There are several people this last year who got let go, and we’re just kind of tightening the belt,” Tolliver said. “And if it means that I’m not getting a pay increase so others can keep their jobs, it helps the company.”
While Tolliver understands why his wage remains low at HQ Productions, he recognizes the need for a second job. “Just this month, we found out insurance is going up, so I’m almost absolutely going to need to find another job,” Tolliver said. Despite these setbacks, Tolliver sees the importance of his company and wants to remain in Fargo, working at HQ Productions.
“The biggest thing for me is that I got an opportunity here,” Tolliver said. “I want to help take this company into the future and I still think it has absolute promise. And to duck out at the last second and see it succeed wouldn’t feel so good. It’s really on the brink. The business has promise and it’s just going to take time.”
For Pantera, working three jobs led him to search for other options. Starting in January, he will be attending graduate school at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, in Columbia,Missouri.
“One thing that I was horrendously lucky about was when I got the teaching gig at MSUM. I discovered I love teaching and I think I’m pretty good at it,” Pantera said. “And that is something that had always been in the back of my mind anyway. In terms of being a media person, I don’t have much of a future here. There just aren’t a lot of jobs and my age [is a factor]. Part of the reason I’m going back to school is because I need to take a different career path.”
As for the reasons he chose to go to Missouri for schooling, Pantera decided staying in North Dakota didn’t offer him much anymore.
“My concern was that if I got a degree in North Dakota, I’d wind up staying in North Dakota, and I just got to the point where the wage scales just pissed me off,” he said. “If I’m going to go through the two years of work that it takes to get a degree, I want to get the best, most marketable degree that I can. I don’t want to be confined to this area because the wage scales are just too low.”
With the current economic downturn, employers have been able to entice workers with lower wages and still find people willing to work for a low price.
“Wages are low, but a couple years ago, before the recession, employers had to start paying more to attract those workers,” said Aas of Job Serice ND. “But with the downturn, now they can pay less. It depends on the occupation.”
However, the Department of Commerce started conducting studies to address the underemployment and multiple-job workers trend in 2002, before the recession hit.
“The fact is, businesses here just don’t pay that much,” Pantera said. “And there’s this crap about how the cost of living is low and in some ways it is – rent here is lower than in the Twin Cities, housing in general is lower – but housing is only one part of your budget. Gas costs as much, food costs as much, incidentals cost as much.”
Pantera thinks the problem with the employer/employee dynamic in North Dakota is that business runs the show. Workers aren’t treated as valuable because others can fill jobs. Those who are most affected also don’t have the energy to commit to making a big change.
“The problem here is systemic at a very deep level,” Pantera said. “The problem with systemic problems is that the people that are most hurt by them have the least time and the fewest resources to do anything about them. If you’re scrambling, working three jobs to feed your family, you don’t have a lot of time to lobby the legislature.”
With companies not committing to paying more, or those that do going unnoticed, the payoffs for increased wages may not be evident initially. But without action, the future holds uncertainty.
“It would just be the right thing to do and the socially responsible thing to do for the people who own companies here to pay more,” Pantera said. “And they’ll come up with a lot of capitalist justifications for not paying more, but in the end, it comes down to the simple question – am I my brother’s keeper? Changing that way of thinking is the only thing that will change the situation.”

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