NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State
University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665
July 16, 1998
The number of people employed in North Dakota's manufacturing industries rose 0.9 percent between 1995 and 1996, from 21,900 to 22,100, according to a recent "Economic Brief" from the State Data Center at North Dakota State University. This put North Dakota 18th in the nation in manufacturing employment growth during that period. Nationally, the number of manufacturing jobs decreased 0.3 percent.
"This is exciting news for North Dakota," said Richard Rathge, director of the State Data Center. "The number of manufacturing jobs in the state continues to rise, which means we continue to diversify our economy. Just in the past 10 years we have added more than 6,700 jobs to the manufacturing sector in North Dakota, which translates into an increase of more than $260 million in payroll.
"Equally important is the fact that North Dakotans nearly doubled the value they added to their products through manufacturing between 1987 and 1996—an infusion exceeding $828 million. The shipment of nearly $4.8 billion worth of manufacturing products from North Dakota in 1996 is a positive sign that the state's economy is diversifying and growing."
Even so, North Dakota has relatively few people working in manufacturing, only about 6 percent of its nonagricultural workers, representing only 0.1 percent of the nation's manufacturing workers. Although the number of manufacturing jobs in North Dakota has increased, the relative proportion of jobs in manufacturing has remained fairly stable.
Growth in manufacturing employment in North Dakota largely reflects business expansion in the manufacture of industrial equipment and machinery. Another area of expansion has been in valueadded processing industries such as food processing cooperatives.
The state's leading producer of jobs is the service sector which accounts for about 31 percent of the state's nonagricultural jobs, followed by government, which produces about 18 percent.
[EDITORS: FOR A BREAKDOWN OF NORTH DAKOTA'S MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY CHARACTERISTICS AND STATISTICS FROM 1977 TO 1996, SEE YELLOW PUBLICATION FOLLOWING THIS STORY, "MANUFACTURING CHARACTERISTICS FOR NORTH DAKOTA, 1996. THIS PUBLICATION IS ALSO AVAILABLE FROM THE STATE DATA CENTER, BOX 5636, NDSU, FARGO, ND 58105.]
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Source: Richard Rathge (701) 231-8621
Editor: Barry Brissman (701) 231-7866
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Click here for a pdf version of this graphic.