Rural counties gained jobs overall last year, due in large measure to gas boom, but not all prospered

Rural America saw an overall gain in jobs over the last year, but those jobs were not distributed evenly across rural counties, according to a data analysis by the Daily Yonder. Last May, the rural unemployment rate was 8.7 percent, almost one percentage point higher than this May, but about one-third of the 2,036 rural counties across the country lost jobs during that time, Bill Bishop reports. (Yonder map)

Bishop writes the rates change significantly from county to county. North Dakota contains four counties that saw the largest gains in employment, mainly from oil and gas drilling, and also the county that saw the largest losses. The 10 states with that gained the most jobs in rural counties over the last year are North Dakota, Montana, Texas and Colorado. These gains are likely due to the natural gas boom in those states, which has exponentially increases employment. The 10 states with the biggest losses are North Dakota, Nebraska, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Minnesota and North Carolina, with the biggest percentage loss in North Dakota at 20.3 percent.