North Dakota continues to see higher than typical initial claims data and they will be updated on Thursday. Here is the change in overall percentage of claims by sector from week 7 to week 8 (these are the weeks of observations since the first reported case of coronavirus in North Dakota).
The two takeaways from this graph for me are the decline in the percentage attributable to the accommodation and food service sector and the increase in the mining sector share. These are small changes to be sure, but as the process matures in the state so does the response of the different industries.
One of the significant problems remains the economic impacts of the virus impacts beyond the state. Those impacts challenge the supply chain nationally, which puts all states, including North Dakota, in a difficult position. North Dakota firms will have issues getting inputs from their different suppliers, and in turn will have difficulty meeting the demands of firms they supply.
In addition to this we cannot forget North Dakota entered the COVID-19 crisis labor constrained. The constraint presented particular issues for businesses in the state that other regions and states did not need to tackle. COVID-19 does nothing to help solve those issues, and in fact could make them more difficult to even start to address in any meaningful capacity. This constraint represents an issue for the state because it effectively constrains significant amounts of additional economic activity, including state GDP, tax collections, and so on.
