Shalom Baer Gee/MDN A now hiring sign sits outside of Culver’s on Broadway in Minot.

The Minot Area Chamber EDC released its January Economy at a Glance report this month. Minot and Ward County unemployment declined from 5.1% in Nov. 2020 to 2.8% in 2021. The national rate is 3.9%. Even still, according to Job Service North Dakota data, there are more job openings in Ward County than there are people looking for work.

There were 1.32 unemployed people per job opening in Ward County in November of 2020. A year later–the most recently available data–that number was .78. In 2020, there were 1,370 active resumes. There are now 254.

“I think that if you look around the community, you’re going to find that there certainly are lots of jobs available signs up,” said John MacMartin, president of the Minot Area Chamber EDC.

While there are many Minot businesses with help wanted signs, the average weekly wages in Ward County increased by only 0.6%. That’s $6 a week, $24 a month, an increase that doesn’t come close to paralleling inflation. The Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of economy-wide inflation, showed the national inflation rate of 6.8 percent from November 2020 to November 2021.

Health Care and Social Assistance and Retail Trade had the most openings in Ward County for both 2020 and 2021. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, many retail workers have to work evenings, weekends, and holidays. The same is true for health-care workers.

“It changed the dynamics of how you look at unemployment and how you look at trying to fill those jobs,” Macmartin said.

While the unemployment rate has declined, the employment rate has increased by 0.4% from 65.5% to 65.9% between Dec. 2020 and Dec. 2021, an increase of 1,623 employed people across the entire state.

The number of new residential housing permits also declined between 2020 and 2021. By November of 2020, the City of Minot had issued 130 building permits for single-family homes, townhouses, and condos. A year later, that number declined to 90. The permits were valued at an average of $165,885 per home in 2020. The average for 2021 was $199,933. That’s an average increase of $34,049, or 20.5%.

Local contractor John Dufner said that this decrease in permits hasn’t affected his business because of the custom home market.

“There’s less custom homes than there are spec homes because every house takes longer. There’s less houses numbers-wise, but they’re usually bigger; they’re nicer; they’re higher end,” Dufner said.

Supply chain issues and building material costs are other potential motivators for the decrease in new homes being built is. Lumber prices skyrocketed in the spring of 2021, peaking in May at $1,686 per thousand board feet, a 55% increase from the highest rate in 2020. Even though those rates decreased in the late summer, they began to rise in the fall, and were up to $1,200 per thousand board feet yesterday.

“It reflects (the) supply chain and what people are willing to pay for homes,” MacMartin said. “As the supply chain has faltered, it’s exacerbated the problem.”

Data from Minot Multiple Listing shows that people in the Minot area bought more homes in 2021 than 2020. The average home in Minot cost $229,650 in 2020 and $246,956 in 2021, a $17,306 or at 7.5% increase. By November in 2020, 734 houses sold. By the same time in 2021, that number reached 931.

MacMartin said a contributing factor for that increase may be low interest rates, which reached a record low of 2.68% in December of 2020, according to Freddie Mac. 2020 average rates averaged at 3.11% in 2020 and 2.96% in 2021.

“Mortgage rates have been in an historic low, and there may be people just trying to take advantage of it in the potential of interest rates going up with inflation,” MacMartin said.