The same dirty and hard work is required for oil work in Texas Eagle Ford and Permian Basin. Both are booming with work.
While labor rates are up and short on people, they are nothing like North Dakota is seeing.
I still say the cold. We have far more drilling of the same type going on in Texas without the extreme conditions in North Dakota.
Sure, cold is a factor.
But would cold keep you from feeding your family, if you had few other options?
Laziness is a factor too, as Koblenz and newgeezer point out. Laziness will keep some men (and women) from feeding their families.
But you also have to consider the Bakken’s geographic isolation and the region’s ruralness. Williston, in the heart of the boom, had a population of what, about 12,000 prior to this boom, and was the fifth largest city in the state?
Billings, Montana, 300 miles to the west, has just over 100,000 people; Fargo, 400 to the east, is a bit larger, and beyond that you have to go to Minneapolis or Spokane to top 200,000.
The North Dakota countryside has emptied out over the years as the farms got bigger and the young hit the road. South Dakota is the same, as are the Canadian provinces to the north.
There just weren’t many people around when the boom hit, and there isn’t any housing for the ones who want to come now.
All the mines around Arizona are hiring. People cannot pass a pea test and when they do they work for a paycheck or two then disappear