An oil boomtown in the middle of North Dakota is proving that the laws of supply and demand apply to everything -- even stripper salaries.
As thousands of men move to Williston, North Dakota seeking high-paying jobs working for oil companies, area strippers have seen their salaries skyrocket, CNNMoney reports. Strippers claim that they can make $2,000 to $3,000 per night in tips -- more than in typical strip club hot spots like Las Vegas -- dancing for the oil rig workers, many of whom moved to the town without their families.
Word of their success has spread and now applications are pouring in to the town's strip clubs from women working as far away as Hawaii and Germany, according to CNNMoney. North Dakota has weathered the recession particularly well, with an unemployment rate of only 3.5 percent as of September, in comparison to the national rate of 9.1 percent.
Though the stripper economy in Williston may seem particularly extreme, women are flocking to jobs dancing in strip clubs and posing in adult magazines elsewhere as well. Employers in the adult entertainment industry told the Associated Press in 2009 that they were seeing an influx in job applicants thanks to the down economy.
Still, the down economy hasn't hurt the strip club industry in many locations. On some nights in British Columbia, strippers pull in less than half of what they used to make thanks in large part to the economic downturn and the rise of internet porn, according to The Vancouver Sun. In Tampa some strip club owners reported in 2008 that their business dropped 25 percent as potential patrons had less money to spend in a down economy.
In more extreme cases, the recession has pushed some into prostitution, especially in Portugal, where many women have struggled to feed their families, according to IPS. The Independent reported at the height of the recession that in Germany, where prostitution is legal, brothels attempted to overcome the financial downturn by offering free promotions and cutting prices.
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