“Pipeline is huge this year — similar to drilling in 2011. There’s truly not a job that doesn’t have an opening.” – Cindy Sanford, Job Services Williston
Demand for CDL drivers and heavy equipment operators are contributing to an expected 9,382 job openings in North Dakota’s mining, driving, oil and hospitality industries statewide by 2019.
Job Service North Dakota participated in four job fairs last week, said Cindy Sanford of the agency’s Williston office.
“Pipeline is huge this year — similar to drilling in 2011,” Sanford told local news outlet the Bismarck Tribune. “There’s truly not a job that doesn’t have an opening.”
One group that is trying to expand into the Bakken is the Laborers' International Union of North America. LIUNA spokeswoman Pamela Link said the union’s premier work is in transmission pipelines, but its members have experience with compressors and pumps, too, and would like to get more involved in gathering pipeline work.
Neset Consulting has found some success attracting employees from a group people don’t always associate with the oil industry — women. Kathy Neset said last week that her company has been certified as a woman-owned business.
And of the company’s roughly 100 field workers, 20 percent of those working on the rigs are women. Neset is proud to be able to offer a "safe, friendly working environment in this industry" to women who enjoy the technical work her firm does in oil and gas, she told the Tribune.
Neset has expanded its offerings. Once specializing in geology, the company has added engineering, project management, on-site gas inspections, well site consulting, production and completion consulting as well as salt water disposal facility engineering.
The company has had a lot of luck recruiting students as they come out of school, particularly from the regional colleges, starting them as interns then hiring them full time upon graduation, according to Neset.
