The following story was written and reported by Jesse Abernathy, Native Sun News Editor. All content © Native Sun News.

PIERRE, SOUTH DAKOTA –– An employment program recently instituted by Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s Office of Economic Development that seeks to outsource workers for jobs within South Dakota has come under fire by Native Americans from across the state’s economically depressed reservations.

The program, referred to as 1,000 New South Dakotans, is part of a package of initiatives from the governor’s office approved by the state Legislature earlier this year. The recruitment program is a further component of the fledgling South Dakota Workforce Initiatives – or South Dakota Wins – which was enacted by both the governor and the Legislature in a concerted effort to deal with workforce development issues.

Such legislation, however, is an almost overt paradox in a state that purports to have a current overall unemployment rate of only around 4 percent.

As reported by Native Sun News last fall, South Dakota’s current “overall” unemployment rate is decidedly exclusive of the state’s nine Native American reservations, where rates of unemployment range from a low of 12 percent on the Yankton Reservation to a high consistently near 90 percent on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Partnering with Manpower, a national recruiting firm based out of Milwaukee and with at least one office in South Dakota, in Sioux Falls, the state’s Department of Labor and Regulation is looking to attract 1,000 out-of-state workers to fill what are considered skilled, high-demand positions in the areas of manufacturing, engineering, financial services and information technology – despite the fact that there are upwards of 40,000 able-bodied adult workers living on South Dakota’s impoverished reservations, according to individual tribal-statistic estimates.

Additionally, there is an accredited higher education institution situated on Pine Ridge – the tribally chartered Oglala Lakota College – that produces some of the state’s brightest and most competitively employable leaders in at least two of the fields in which the state is looking elsewhere – financial services and information technology. OLC also has several satellite campuses scattered throughout both Pine Ridge and South Dakota.

“It is so typical of our state to bypass our reservations,” said Bridgett Howe, a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe. “We, as Natives, are always never given opportunities to better our surroundings – we have to fight for what is dangled in front of us. There are so many Natives educated, and more getting educated, so it is very sad and sickening what our so-called state is doing.”

“But, we have always persevered and will continue to do so,” she said. Howe serves as the finance clerk for Crow Creek Tribal Schools’ administration, located in Stephan.

Marice Ashley, or Tokahe Mani Wi (Woman Who Walks First), of Pierre said such actions are typical of South Dakota’s government. Ashley is also a member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe and is currently working toward certification as a K-12 principal.

“The ignorance lives on,” she said.

“Common sense would say to first recruit within our state, especially the reservations, before looking elsewhere,” said Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Marisa Abernathy.

“But obviously our state government is not practicing good critical thinking skills when it comes to improving our unemployment rate. This is also reflected in the rest of our country, with many American citizens being outsourced for cheaper labor in other countries,” she said.

Abernathy is employed as a correctional officer within South Dakota.

“All of the jobs in need of skilled workers will be advertised first in South Dakota for 30 days, and anyone who qualifies, including those who live on reservations, may apply,” said Daugaard’s press secretary, Joe Kafka, in an email to NSN. “We are also expanding training programs that anyone, including those who live on reservations, can use to become qualified for high-need occupations.”

“We will only look for workers in other states if we cannot find South Dakotans to fill the job openings that come up for skilled workers,” he said. “The Governor launched this initiative in order to fill hard-to-fill jobs such as welding, engineering, information technology and accounting.”

Dawn Dovre, public affairs director for the state’s Labor and Regulation Department, echoed the governor’s sentiment. According to Dovre, the 1,000 New South Dakotans program will serve as an intermediary, or as a sort of employment agency, for in-state employers that are looking to fill hard-to-fill positions via job announcement postings on the department’s website. She calls it an “employer-driven project.”

Further, the program – which kicks off on April 1 – will cover half of the cost of recruiting non-South Dakotans for in-state employers, according to the South Dakota Wins website.

“(Employers) have to list their job openings with the Department of Labor and Regulation for 30 days before they can get any assistance in trying to recruit (employees) from out of state,” Dovre said in explaining how 1,000 New South Dakotans works, and in support of the claim from the governor’s office.

And, South Dakota’s Labor and Regulation Department works in partnership with tribes throughout the state in order to familiarize them with the services offered through the department, she said.

“We’re always trying to reach out to any South Dakota job-seeker to try to help them find the right career opportunity and help them find work here in South Dakota. So we’ve not by any means lost focus of trying to get the unemployed in South Dakota into jobs, because we definitely understand that there still are people out there looking for work.”

As far as which external states Manpower will be actively recruiting in, Dovre is, by her own admission, oblivious.

“I really don’t know how that side of the equation works as far as if there’s different, specific states they’re reaching out to – I don’t know the answer to that,” she said.

According to Dovre, employers applying for assistance through the 1,000 New South Dakotans program must be seeking workers in the designated fields of manufacturing, engineering, financial services and information technology in order to qualify.

If, after 30 days of advertising through the state, employers are still not able to fill these specific positions, “then that’s when we give the job announcements to Manpower,” said Dovre.

Phone messages for Manpower’s regional spokesman out of Gillette, Wyo., had not been responded to at press time.

Also, at this point, it’s too early to know what geographic regions of South Dakota employers are located in, Dovre said. “We don’t have that specific information yet.”

Regarding the number of Native Americans within South Dakota who are registered with and find jobs through the Labor and Regulation Department, she said, “I don’t know if (ethnicity is) something we can even ask for.”

In a post-interview email to NSN, Dovre noted, “Regarding the number of Native American job seekers registered with our Department, ethnicity is not a required field, so I do not have that data.”

Dovre is uncertain how much money will be funneled into 1,000 New South Dakotans and for how long.

“What this really stems from is when the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (staff) and the governor were visiting businesses all of last fall and, yes, they did hear that employers were not finding enough skilled workers, so that is when the South Dakota Wins program was created,” she said. “Specifically, this was one of the strategies to be able to help find more skilled workers for South Dakota businesses.”

Dovre said she does not know if Daugaard included South Dakota’s reservations in his apparently statewide visit.

South Dakota’s government is looking to the future of its own, inclusive of Native Americans, according to Dovre, and remedying the situation of having to search outside the state for enough qualified individuals to meet in-state employment demands.

“If you look at the full scope of South Dakota Wins, the programs that address preparing our youth for these (skilled) jobs, along with an arm that is training for the jobs – specifically in health care – this is really just one strategy out of the four, which are all listed on the website, to make sure that we do get the workforce we need by helping to train our youth in the workforce already in the state, and then trying to recruit those that may have moved away to come back and fill some of these jobs, too.”

(Contact Jesse Abernathy at editor@nsweekly.com) Copyright permission by Native Sun News www.nsweekly.com