With 13 companies on the Inc 5000 list of fastest-growing businesses in the United States, South Dakota is knocking it out of the park for a state that comes in a number 46 out of 50 for population level. It’s due, in large part, to the state’s advantageous tax climate for business and a carefully calculated growth plan supporting high-value focus industries like bioscience, advanced manufacturing, and value-added agriculture.
Those factors spur employers like Rapid City’s VRC Metal Systems, and OmegaQuant and MarketBeat in Sioux Falls, to bring in talented HR professionals to help fuel and manage their growth. As skilled positions open up in such companies, in a state that is not, to put it lightly, known as a hotbed for science and tech employment, it falls to human resources to acquire and motivate well-educated employees that can get the job done.
That, in turn, requires well-educated and highly-skilled HR staff. And high salaries are what it takes to attract them.
Salary Ranges for South Dakota’s HR Professionals
South Dakota’s median household income is just north of $53,000 per year, which helps put HR salaries throughout the state into some perspective. A top-end HR manager, in the 90thpercentile of the profession, can pull in $127,940 annually. In the top 25 percent, nearly every HR role in the state comes in higher than $60,000 per year.
With roles like training and development specialists growing at a projected 11.8 percent by 2026, that translates into openings for some very comfortable positions for a select number of HR professionals in South Dakota.
Human Resources Manager Salaries in South Dakota
Becoming an HR manager in South Dakota means joining a pretty select group of professionals. Across the state, there are only around 250 people in that role… which helps to explain the high salaries for the position. It takes a lot of education and solid real-world experience to get a slot working as an HR manager here, but you can expect to be well-rewarded for the dedication and effort you put into achieving that role.
Rapid City
These are the employment levels and pay levels earned by HR managers in Rapid City:
Sioux Falls
Sioux Falls is home to the largest cadre of HR managers in South Dakota, and also to the highest salaries at every level of employment.
Human Resources Specialist and Assistant Salaries in South Dakota
A bachelor’s degree and a solid interview can plant you into a specialist or assistant role in HR in South Dakota, and picking the right part of the state can boost your salary level considerably over the median. On the whole, South Dakota shows an unusual pattern for wage levels among HR line staff, with almost all positions bringing in a median annual wage of around $50,000, and a top ten percent wage between $70,000 and $80,000. Location matters more than specialization here, as you can see by comparing the major metropolitan areas in the state below.
Rapid City
Although there are fewer HR assistants in Rapid City, their annual median wage is higher than anywhere else in the state.
Sioux Falls
Sioux Falls generally has the highest employment levels for HR staff compared to other South Dakota metropolitan areas.
Salary and employment data compiled by the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics in May of 2018 for human resources managers, specialists, and assistants – https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_sd.htm#11-9111. The BLS salary data shown here represents median – 90th percentile salary ranges for the state and its MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Areas) and includes workers at all levels of education and experience. This data does not represent starting salaries.
Job growth projections sourced from the South Dakota Department of Labor & Regulation and published in the U.S. Department of Labor-funded Long Term Occupational Projections (2016-2026) database – https://projectionscentral.com/Projections/LongTerm. Employment conditions in your area may vary.
All salary and job growth data accessed in October 2019.