2/3 of rural counties have fewer jobs than in 2007

Daily Yonder map shows job growth or loss. The Yonder report has an interactive version.

"The number of jobs in rural America increased in the last year, but rural counties remain well below their pre-recession employment level," The Daily Yonder reports. "Only 40 percent of urban counties have fewer jobs now than in 2007. In rural America, however, two-thirds of the counties had fewer jobs in October than in 2007. . . . Pike County, in Kentucky’s coal country, lost over 5,000 jobs. Chautauqua County in New York has lost over 11,600 jobs since 2007."

Rural unemployment rates have dropped since 2007, "not because there are more jobs, but because the total workforce has shrunk. Since 2007, the total number of people working or looking for a job in rural counties has dropped by nearly 1.1 million people," Bill Bishop writes. In the last year, the rural workforce shrank by 27,000. The number of rural jobs increased by fewer than 200,000 from October 2016 to October 2017. The report includes an interactive map with Bureau of Labor Statistics data for each county.