(Image Source: California EPA)

BY MADISON MACK
ANCHOR ANTHONY MARTINEZ

The national unemployment rate may be hovering at 9% but there’s one state that has a surplus of jobs -- North Dakota. NBC explains.

“It’s an oil boom. Men and women and children have moved here from all over the country putting a tremendous strain on the infrastructure here. But even with all the people who have come in the last few years, there are thousands and thousands of jobs waiting to be taken.”

And as the industry Blog BakkenOil.org explains the whole thing is possible because of the Bakken rock formation.

“It is currently the largest known reserve of light sweet crude in North America. … Oil was first discovered here in 1951, but due to technical limitations, it has only been until fairly recently that any significant amount of oil has been recovered. … More recent estimates have come up with figures as high as 24 billion barrels in technically recoverable oil.”

The unemployment rate in most of the boomtown is 1.5% or less. Even fast food restaurants are paying over 12 dollars an hour -- with signing bonuses. And as CNN reports most oil company jobs pay six figures.

“This has become an incredible engine. We have gone from around 4,500 employees, direct employees in the oil and gas industry in 2005 to today it well over 35,000. We probably have close to 2,000 job openings on any given day.”

But the influx of workers has some unexpected consequences. For one thing, KSHB reported back in September -- finding a job is the easy part, its finding a place to live that's the problem.

“The people these houses where do they sleep? In these campers. Williston, the center of the oil boom, is frantically trying to respond. In less than two years, this land will have hundreds of homes, thousands of apartments, a school, and even a mall. And that’s just one development. The ripple effect is enormous.”

Other industries are being affected in unexpected ways, including -- adult entertainment? New York Daily News explains.

“A pair of strip clubs in Williston, N.D., are drawing exotic dancers who can earn up to $2,000 a night … The oil workers are making big bucks, and have few options in spending their cash. Many of the customers ... are married men who chased the oil money to North Dakota -- and left their families at home.”

But as a writer for the Minneapolis Star Tribune notes, it’s tricky to build up a local economy around one resource.

“In a region burned twice by oil booms that went bust, memories run deep. Towns such as Williston are caught trying to foster roots for workers, many of whom have no intention of settling in North Dakota ... Smaller booms in the 1950s and late 1970s-early 1980s petered out when oil prices fell.”

If drilling continues as projected, western North Dakota will have 45,000 wells within two decades.

Transcript by Newsy.