Job Outlook Attractive To South Dakota Students

ABERDEEN, SD - With more than 15,000 jobs available in South Dakota and more expected, is it affecting the employment outlook of high school seniors?

As communities across the state recruit workers to fill available positions, inside Roncalli High School in Aberdeen, senior Ross Barton is glad to hear about the growing job opportunities.

He'd like to stay in the state when he enters the workforce.

"You already have a foundation here. You know people; people know you," Barton said.

But a bigger priority than that for Barton is having a job when he finishes college.

His classmate Sara Mangan isn't sure where she wants to end up yet. But she hasn't written off South Dakota.

Neither student we talked with were dead set on a spot to land. So having quality jobs available, they said, would be crucial to keeping them here.

"I'm more of a person that goes and wants to look for things elsewhere. But I would say if there were jobs here for sure I would give more thought to staying in-state," Mangan said.

"There's things you can look forward to more than just jobs because then people come along with jobs too. So I think a lot more things will open up," Barton said.

And that's why the extra jobs in the state now have their attention. They join other classmates wanting majors they start paying for next year to lead to a paycheck when they're done.

"I would definitely say looking at that and seeing the numbers grow is definitely a positive thing to look for," Mangan said.

And something they're hoping sticks around right here in their home state.

A seven county area around Aberdeen which is where the students we talked with are from, currently has 1,400 openings. That's 350 more than this same time last year.