North Dakota jobs, wages and worker-rights data
One state reference connecting BLS estimates with DOL wage and unemployment provisions.
Reading North Dakota in context
BLS estimated 429,430 wage-and-salary jobs across occupations in North Dakota in May 2025. The cross-occupation mean annual wage was $64,050, while the median was $52,480. The mean averages the distribution and the median marks its midpoint, so neither should be read as the expected pay for every job in the state.
The DOL state wage table lists an applicable floor of $7.25 per hour after accounting for the federal floor where the listed state rate is lower or no state wage law applies. Coverage, occupation, employer size, local ordinances, and effective dates can change the result. The North Dakota minimum-wage page retains the DOL summary text and verification date.
North Dakota unemployment provisions effective January 1, 2026 list a maximum weekly benefit of $815 and potential duration up to 26 weeks. The maximum is a statutory ceiling, not the amount every claimant receives. Wage history, separation, continuing eligibility, partial earnings, and state determinations matter.
The state labor contact is Department of Labor and Human Rights. LaborBrief links to that agency for current filing and enforcement information because public summaries cannot resolve individual coverage or later changes. The worker-rights page separates the federal baseline from state-specific material, and the benefit page reproduces the DOL table fields without estimates.
Occupation pages for North Dakota are published only when BLS supplies employment, jobs per 1,000, location quotient, annual mean, annual median, and hourly mean. Suppressed rows do not become pages. That rule avoids implying that a missing value is zero and prevents national numbers from being passed off as state results.
To compare this market with another state, keep the occupation code, reference period, and wage measure fixed. Then read employment scale and location quotient separately: one is an estimated count and the other is a relative share. The job-market comparison guide explains why a single ranking cannot capture both.
The statistical data on this page cover May 2025; the wage-law table was updated July 1, 2026; and the unemployment provisions are effective January 1, 2026. Those dates are not interchangeable. LaborBrief records them beside the figures so readers can return to the correct publication and check for later amendments.
Primary sources
- BLS OEWS tables — BLS OEWS, May 2025
- DOL state minimum wage laws — updated July 1, 2026
- DOL Significant Provisions of State UI Laws — effective January 2026
- Department of Labor and Human Rights — state source