Want a job? Go West, where ads unanswered

Swanson added the phenomenon of quasi-retirement with older workers cutting back on hours but still heading to the office will grow, while international workers will be drawn to the region. Younger workers who used to leave will find it worth their while to stay.

“The squeeze is on. You get into these 2 percent and less unemployment rates and you’re moving into a seller’s market with the seller being the worker,” Swanson said.

Officials worry the razor thin labor market could bind economic growth, although there has been no indication of that yet.

“One of the reasons we are seeing the lower (unemployment) rates is we are starting to see more investment in our economy. It’s like finding an undervalued stock,” said Tyler Turner, Montana’s economic development chief.

In Helena, the pool of applicants has been shrinking even for jobs on the police force. For professional jobs, such as department managers, the city is considering hiring slightly underqualified people that can be trained on the job.

“This is the tightest market I have ever seen,” said Salty Payne, who has worked in the Helena City human resource office for 15 years.

Payne in part blames the area’s building boom, which is drawing workers to construction trades that are offering higher salaries.

Montana state lawmaker Art Noonan lives in the mining town of Butte — the epicenter of a big mining bust 20 years ago. Now, more people are moving in to build second homes and high paying jobs are coming back as copper prices go up.

“All of these things are sort of clicking at the same time,” Noonan said. “The only economic development we used to get was the creation of more economic development offices.”

In Utah — where unemployment rates have been hovering around 2.5 percent — amusement parks, trucking companies, telemarketing firms and others have been paying bonuses of hundreds of dollars or more to find workers.

“It boils down to the attractiveness of the (interior) West,” said Mark Knold, chief economist at the Utah Department of Workforce Services. “It is a population magnet.”

And workers have benefited. Utah workers saw a 5.4 percent average wage increase in 2006, Knold said.

But questions remain about how long the West can weather the problems that come with low unemployment.

“The hardest thing is to keep the economy growing at a strong rate when you have a low unemployment rate,” he said. “Take a company that wants to expand. Where is the next worker going to come from?”

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