Unemployment in rural counties rose in January to 9.1 percent, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows an "annual pattern, as seasonal employees from the Christmas sales period are laid off and the ranks of the unemployed swell," Bill Bishop of the Daily Yonder writes. The January unemployment rate has steadily dropped each year by about 1 percentage point since 2010, when it was 11.2 percent. These figures are not particularly surprising, but Bishop points out "the most striking aspect of rural America's employment situation ... is the stark divide between rural areas with high and low unemployment." (Yonder map)
Unemployment in the Great Plains is consistently lower than the national average, but on the coasts and in the Southeast, it's consistently higher than the national average. Bishop writes that counties from the Dakotas and Nebraska dominate the 50 counties with the lowest unemployment rates, and have for the last several years. New Hampshire, Vermont and parts of rural Virginia also have low unemployment rates, but "the unemployment map of rural America looks like a barber pole, with stripes of high unemployment along the coasts and into the Midwest and low unemployment running down the center of the country," writes Bishop. Of the top 10 counties with the highest rates, three each are in Alaska and North Carolina, two are in California and New Mexico and Michigan have one each.
Bishop writes that the "mismatch of people and jobs" has "bizarre consequences." In South Dakota, the legislature passed a law allowing the state to hire a recruitment agency to help bring 1,000 out-of-state workers in to fill jobs. Bishop notes in the comments section of his post that the Southern Rural Development Center has conducted work that shows more people are moving from the South and finding work elsewhere, and this is one reason for high rates of low unemployment in the Great Plains. (Read more)
Unemployment in the Great Plains is consistently lower than the national average, but on the coasts and in the Southeast, it's consistently higher than the national average. Bishop writes that counties from the Dakotas and Nebraska dominate the 50 counties with the lowest unemployment rates, and have for the last several years. New Hampshire, Vermont and parts of rural Virginia also have low unemployment rates, but "the unemployment map of rural America looks like a barber pole, with stripes of high unemployment along the coasts and into the Midwest and low unemployment running down the center of the country," writes Bishop. Of the top 10 counties with the highest rates, three each are in Alaska and North Carolina, two are in California and New Mexico and Michigan have one each.Bishop writes that the "mismatch of people and jobs" has "bizarre consequences." In South Dakota, the legislature passed a law allowing the state to hire a recruitment agency to help bring 1,000 out-of-state workers in to fill jobs. Bishop notes in the comments section of his post that the Southern Rural Development Center has conducted work that shows more people are moving from the South and finding work elsewhere, and this is one reason for high rates of low unemployment in the Great Plains. (Read more)
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