North Dakota officials are sending a message to former residents: Please come back.

An uptick in economic activity, spurred largely by a boom in the state's oil patch, has resulted in more than 10,000 jobs in North Dakota with no takers, state Commerce Commissioner Shane Goettle said.

The plea to return is aimed at people like David and Amy Mayer, young professionals who want to raise a family closer to where they grew up. Many 20- and 30-year-olds have been leaving the state.

For years, North Dakota has "been emptied of talent because of lack of opportunities," Goettle said. "Our economy is producing more opportunities now than it has in the past, and we see on the horizon lots of opportunities and upward mobility," he said.

The state Commerce Department and businesses in need of workers are hoping to woo former North Dakotans and others at daylong job fairs in Chicago next Saturday, and in Denver on Nov. 17.

Some 70 businesses are slated to attend the job fair in Chicago. Each company must offer jobs paying more than $30,000 a year - with benefits - to participate.

The jobs to be touted range from assistant attorney general to water resource engineer.

North Dakota has some competition from neighboring Western states in looking for people to fill jobs. In May, eight Rocky Mountain states reported a record low 3.4 percent unemployment rate, the federal Labor Department said.

Pitching North Dakota to expatriates is an easier sell than pitching to someone who has never been to the state, who dismiss North Dakota as a cold and inconsequential place where nothing much happens, Goettle said.

"If they have a conception of North Dakota at all, it's from the movie 'Fargo,' which does not put its best foot forward for our state," Goettle said.

The "Experience North Dakota" concept originated last fall in St. Paul, Minn., drawing about 450 people, Goettle said.

"This is the pitch: We have quality jobs available, quality of life, and a good, safe place to live and raise a family," Gov. John Hoeven said.

"When it's North Dakota, you can always come home," he said.

Officials have not been able trace any relocations from the St. Paul event, Commerce spokeswoman Julie Fedorchak said.

"This is a new activity for state, trying to play matchmaker," Goettle said. "We know it's not the total answer to all worker-shortage challenges."

Each event costs the state about $15,000 and is matched by donations from businesses, Goettle said. Food, door prices and activities for children are part of the job fairs.

Officials at North Dakota State University in Fargo and University of North Dakota in Grand Forks provided lists of alumni to help target expatriates.

"We know many native North Dakotans are dealing with the headaches and hassles of big-city life," said Goettle, who himself has left his native North Dakota twice to pursue jobs.

Young professionals with no children or very young children are the target recruits, Goettle said. The Mayers could be shining examples.

David Mayer, 31, moved to Minneapolis after receiving a landscape architect degree from North Dakota State University in Fargo.

"North Dakota was one of four states where you didn't need a license to call yourself a landscape architect, and NDSU is one of the biggest and best landscape architecture schools in the county," Mayer said, laughing at the irony.

State officials changed the licensing law, opening up opportunities that helped prompt the Mayers move back to their hometown of Bismarck.

"We wanted to raise a family where we grew up and not in such a large city," Mayer said. "We felt like we wanted a little slower pace."

The couple made the move to Bismarck last year. Their son, Noah, was born a few months later.

Amy Mayer, 31, who worked as a business analyst for a software company in Minneapolis, landed a similar job with the state, though the pay is not as high. Fuel and property taxes are more expensive in Bismarck but "it all comes out in the wash," she said.

"We thought it important to be close to our parents in a town that has good education, low crime and not very much traffic," Amy Mayer said.

The Census Bureau's most recent North Dakota estimate put the state's population at 635,867 on July 1, 2006, up about 1,262 from 2005 but down from 642,200 in 2000. Only Vermont and Wyoming have fewer residents than North Dakota.

Census Bureau estimates show about 21,000 North Dakotans left the state between 2000 and 2007, said Richard Rathge, the state data center's director and North Dakota's demographer.

"Those 21,000 folks - that's a lot of folks," Rathge said. The loss of North Dakotans is about equal to the population of Stutsman County, North Dakota's seventh most populated county, he said.

North Dakota has had more births than deaths in recent years and the number of people moving to the western part of the state has helped temper population losses, Rathge said.

"Obviously, outmigration is something everyone in North Dakota is worried about," Rathge said. "One should not be pessimistic and I'm not trying to be. But if we look at the data, we should be compelled to act."