With the energy boom there, I am hearing about people making $15+/hr in unskilled labor.
I have a degree in biochemistry, and have worked in QA/QC in a manufacturing environment (doing various analytical and micro tests) and as a chemist for a pharma company. I am currently employed at a decent job, but if I could make more somewhere else I would. Would those skills be useful in any way to what they have going on in ND?
Where would I find job listings? Things like ‘monster’ seem somewhat generic.
Would my skill-set be of any use in the energy industry, preferably in remote locations (because the pay is higher) like offshore, AK, ND? I do not have a wife and kids, and am willing to relocate. So I have that going for me.
I believe you could start here [rigzone] in their career section. Also the city data forum will have a lot of info about jobs and who’s hiring at the moment. The link I gave you is the relocation/housing part, but you can navigate thru the site for the info you need.
We were considering locating a business up there and were looking mainly for real estate info, so we weren’t really concentrating on employment. But the sites ended up having a lot of info on it anyway.
Hope it helps some.
On edit: Found a thread on the subject “How to get a job” up there.
Someone with a Chemistry background is useful to a O&G company or perhaps one of the contracting companies. You could be put to work in a lab evaluating data collected from the wells or perhaps working with the engineers designing the fluids to be used when drilling the well. One of our petrophysicist has degrees in Chemistry and uses them to evaluated the wireline logs and generate other data from them. I don’t know what the starting salaries would be like but I would guess it is in the $50,000 range - more if you have an advanced degree.
Be aware that the cost of living in Williston has skyrocketed - particularly a place to stay. IF you can find one, a lot of people are sleeping in their cars - which in North Dakota in the Winter isn’t good.
The hospital up there has their own apartment building for the employees - because the nurses can’t afford to live there.
You make a lot of money up there because you will spend it to live there - its a boom town. Don’t be seduced by the salary until you know what you’ll end up actually ending up with after rent.
(On the plus side, my brother in law bought an apartment building there ten years ago or something - he and his partners - who live a few hours away from Williston - are doing quite well.)
Best way to make money would be to provide a service to people already employed.
Laundry pick up and delivery, something like that. Grocery service. Open a brothel.
I happen to be in Dickinson, ND, at this very moment, scoping out a site for a client who builds apartment complexes. There is a major building boom here, trying to accommodate all the oil workers. They’re anticipating rents ranging from $2200 for a 2br/1ba apartment, up to $2950 for a 3/2.5. The current rental vacancy rate is 0%.
Yeah, I saw that when I was looking. They said rents were about $350/month before the boom and are now $2500 for the same kinds of apartment. And I heard about people sleeping in their cars, and all the shantytowns made up of tents.
I figured if I could find a job paying 80k+ in ND, then it would be worth it to move. But I really don’t know if that is realistic if they are closer to 50k like **DrumBum **implies. I can get about 50k in a low cost of living area.
However if I could find something for 80k I wouldn’t be adverse to sharing a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other people.
How long is this energy boom expected to last? Is there a risk you could end up with tons of empty apartments and a quasi ghost town after the boom is over?
