As Fargo goes, so goes the nation? If you want to know what a zero-unemployment economy could be like, this is the place to look. Full employment here actually means full employment, not the 95 percent that most economists have long thought was the best society could do. Creating workers is more urgent than creating jobs. If you can write software code, manage a bank or design electronic components, Fargo could really use you. Companies are so desperate that they’re using alumni lists from area colleges to make come-on-home pitches to North Dakotans who left the state after graduation. A number of employers used these lists to invite former North Dakotans visiting home for the recent holidays to a job fair, disguised as a ““holiday social.’’ It’s gotten so cutthroat at the West Acres Shopping Mall that retailers are offering signing bonuses to lure away salespeople from the store down the hall. Kohl’s department store hopes that if you like to shop there, you might also like to work there. It’s using a mailing list to offer employment to its best customers.
How has Fargo come to practically snuff out joblessness? Certainly it’s riding a national wave. December government figures peg U.S. unemployment at 4.3 percent, the lowest it’s been since February 1970. Fargo has managed to do even better, thanks partly to a clutch of colleges and hospitals, the sort of operations that are relatively immune to economic downturns. It’s also a retail magnet for the entire Upper Plains: its per capita retail spending is usually among the nation’s highest because so many people from the region go to Fargo to do their shopping. Fargo’s steady economic growth stands in stark contrast to the boom and bust of farming and oil in the region, both of which are deep into bust right now. That means much of Fargo’s success has come at the expense of the dying small towns of the plains. ““We get accused of killing ’em off,’’ says Mayor Bruce Furness. ““But it’s inevitable. There are no opportunities there.''
But Fargo hasn’t just sucked the life out of its neighbors. Its economy has become increasingly diversified and high tech. Software companies like Great Plains, a homegrown operation employing 700 here, and Navigation Technologies, which makes mapping software, have brought a touch of Silicon Valley to the area. At least six banks built new branches or broke ground for new headquarters in 1998. Even manufacturing got a boost, helping to set a record for construction in Fargo last year: Cardinal Glass built a 140,000-square-foot plant, and Solid Comfort, which makes hotel furniture, completed a $2.5 million plant expansion.
The infinitesimal jobless rate has turned many bosses into supplicants for workers’ favor. Dalton Ross, a partner in six Taco John’s restaurants and three Godfather’s pizzerias, has converted an assistant manager into an ““employee-retainment specialist’’ who develops loyalty-building programs like family nights, when employees can bring the spouse and kids in for discounted food. Ross now lets his managers hire job candidates on the spot, immediately after an interview, instead of calling them later with a decision. He gives bonuses of a couple of hundred dollars to any employee who stays more than 90 days. ““We’ve tried just about everything,’’ Ross says. And he now pays, on average, $7.50 an hour, compared with $4.50 five years ago. ““The only logical way to attract more folks is to raise wages or fringe benefits,’’ says Deane Foote, vice president of Paragon Decision Resources, an Illinois business-relocation firm that has studied Fargo’s labor market.
That logic is also starting to make some employers leery of Fargo. Three years ago Cargill, the Minneapolis agricultural trading company, was looking for a place to consolidate its financial operations. It dropped Fargo from contention because of the low unemployment rate. Fargo officials, arguing that there were plenty of workers who would trade up to Cargill’s jobs, ran a test ad in the local paper. In one week 2,500 people replied. Cargill came to Fargo and now employs 225 people.
To help expand the labor pool, Fargo officials and local employers are building a Skills and Technology Training Center to train workers as welders, phone technicians and computer programmers. Fargo has also become a resettling point for Bosnians, Somalis, Sudanese and others–389 of the state’s 537 refugees this year settled in Fargo. Sixty-three percent don’t speak English, but within six months, 90 percent of able-bodied refugees are working.
Fargo hasn’t been immune to layoffs. Case Corp., which makes agricultural equipment, laid off 25 production workers permanently and shut down its Fargo plant for December when Russia slashed an order for combines from 500 to 100. And the week before Christmas–happy holidays!–Federal Beef Processors announced that it was closing its West Fargo plant, which employs 283 people. Economic-development officials’ reaction: good riddance. The plant was plagued with environmental problems. And anyway, with-in days of the plant’s closing announcement, a local turkey-processing plant was running newspaper ads offering jobs to Federal Beef employees. You can’t even stay fired in Fargo these days.
