Friday, April 27, 2012

Williston, ND May Now Have Highest Wages in U.S.

Metro Area   Average Annual     
Wages
Williston, ND$70,000
San Francisco$64,820
Washington, D.C.$62,890
Boston$60,390
New York City $58,500
Seattle$56,290
Los Angeles$51,600
Chicago$49,030


From today's Williston (ND) Herald:

"Williston Economic Development’s deputy director has the daunting task of tracking job creation in the Williston area. Shawn Wenko says he likes to see how Williston compares to other cities in the state. And, it’s probably no big shock that Williston leads the state in job growth. Wenko says Williams County created over 12,000 jobs from January 2010 to September 2011.

“That number doesn’t surprise me. If we could have brought housing online faster it would probably be even more. The fourth quarter of 2011 will be faster.” During those same seven quarters Williams County also was number one in business creation - more than 400 new businesses were created.  Wenko says he doesn’t see any stoppage in the future. “It’s a reflection of the economic activity out here – we are number one in every area and it doesn’t look to slow down anytime soon. We will probably pull away even further from the other counties,” Wenko says.

Williams County also led the state in personal income increases at the end of the third quarter in 2011. The average weekly wage was nearly $1,400 in Williams County, just under $71,000 a year.

That’s higher than any other city in the state,” Wenko said."

MP: That might also be higher than any other city or metro area in the entire country, see chart above of average annual wages by metro area based on data from the BLS. So it's not just drill, drill, drill = jobs, jobs, jobs, it's also the case that drill, drill, drill = high-paying jobs, high-paying jobs, high-paying jobs. Note also that the jobless rate in Williston and Williams County is an eye-popping 0.9%. 


4 Comments:

At 4/28/2012 8:46 AM, Blogger VangelV said...

It is expensive to hire drill crews and competent people in the oil and gas sector. This is why costs of labour have yet to come down and why it still costs $5-$10 million for horizontal wells.

 
At 4/28/2012 1:40 PM, Blogger Dave said...

And how about the TAXES the GOVT is receiving from all this DRILLING activity. All those CIVIL SERVANTS now have a new source of revenue to make sure their PENSIONS are paid. They should be on their knees thanking "BIG OIL".

 
At 4/28/2012 1:47 PM, Blogger Dave said...

And how about the TAXES the GOVT is receiving from all this DRILLING activity. All those CIVIL SERVANTS now have a new source of revenue to make sure their PENSIONS are paid. They should be on their knees thanking "BIG OIL".

 
At 4/29/2012 12:02 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

those numbers for SF and new york are suspiciously low.

the SF metro area includes oakland and freemont, neither of which has anything like the wealth of SF (and are both on the other side of the bay. freemont is 45 mins from sf)

this drags down the sf numbers dramatically. the numbers for the city proper are MUCH higher.

you could make these same arguments for new york. manhattan would be the top of this chart with an average salary of $90k+.

lumping in queens and the bronx drags that down a great deal.

 

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