Two large employers in the northern hills co-hosted a job fair on Tuesday, April 16.
Both Fermilab and the Sanford Underground Research Facility are hiring skilled trade, technical and administrative roles to assist with upcoming neutrino research.
Fermilab and SURF held the fair to to draw job seekers from South Dakota and eastern Wyoming with experience in construction, electrical, engineers, equipment operation, IT, logistics and more.
Chris Burger, human resources managers at SURF, said it’s important the whole region attracts qualified workers.
“I think it’s really optimal that we give all of the people that have the talented skills that we need to come and look at the opportunities we have available," Burger said. "To search and find things that are available, just not with SURF, but with all the local communities and local organizations that have job needs.”
SURF and Fermilab combined are looking to hire over 100 people in the coming year. The openings are a mix of short and long-term positions.
South Dakota’s unemployment rate sits at 2.1 percent. Addressing the lack of labor force in South Dakota has been a priority of Gov. Kristi Noem and the state Legislature.
Since 2020, crews underground have excavated and moved to the surface approximately 800,000 tons of rock. Two of the larger caverns are over four football fields long, 65 feet wide and 90 feet tall. Now that cavern excavation is coming to an end, Fermilab’s Luke Mickelson says the lab is shifting focus.
“With excavation coming to an end, we are entering the next stage of our project, which is the installation and construction of the project,” Mickelson said. “With that comes, we’re now at a point where we’re going to be hiring a majority of our workforce.”
Much of the next phase of construction will center around the two liquid argon neutrino detectors, which will detect neutrinos beamed from Illinois. Scientists believe neutrinos are crucial to understanding the origin of matter.
