Rural job growth continued to lag urban areas in the past year; view county-level data to see how your area compared

Job changes from July 2018 to 2019. Click here to view the interactive version. (Map by The Daily Yonder)

Job growth in rural counties continued to lag urban counties from July 2018 to July 2019, according to the latest employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Only 8 percent of new jobs were created in rural counties in that time period, while more than 60% went to metro areas that have more than 1 million people. However, jobs in smaller and mid-sized cities grew at a faster rate than in major cities, Bill Bishop reports for The Daily Yonder.

Meanwhile, 45% of rural counties lost jobs last year, compared to 20% of urban counties. "The largest rural job declines were in Hawaii. The largest gains were scattered across the country, from Jackson County, West Virginia, to the coasts of South Carolina and Alabama," Bishop reports.