South Dakota Governor Noem’s national workforce recruitment campaign, “Freedom Works Here,” has surpassed expectations with more than 1,300 applications submitted in the first 5 days by individuals seeking career opportunities in South Dakota.
Noem says “the state that has the workers will be the state that wins,” adding that the early response “shows that folks all over America see that what we’re doing here in South Dakota is working – and they want to be a part of it.”
The states with the highest number of inquiries are California, Texas, and Florida, but a good number also came from South Dakota. That also pleases Noem because the campaign was designed to benefit both lifelong South Dakotans and new residents.
Secretary of Labor and Regulation Marcia Hultman says the state has “never had a recruitment marketing effort that has captured this many people in this way for the entirety of the marketing campaign – let alone in less than 7 days.”
South Dakota has experienced consistent growth in recent years, boasting along with Nebraska and New Hampshire the lowest unemployment rate in American history at 1.9%.
Despite that, Chris Schilken, Commissioner of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, says there are still 25,000 open job positions in the state with employers struggling to find workers.
Schilken says the next step in the Freedom Works Here campaign “is to get these folks plugged into our workforce and our communities here in South Dakota. We need businesses to work with us so that we can make sure all of our open jobs are listed.”