Most counties lost jobs in April, but rural counties lost a smaller percentage of theirs; county-level data available

Job losses from March-April 2020; differences among states may reflect policies on unemployment benefits and other factors. (Daily Yonder map; click on the image to for a larger version, or click here for the interactive version)

"Just about every corner of the country lost huge numbers of jobs between March and April of this year, but rural places fared far better than the nation’s largest cities," Bill Bishop reports for The Daily Yonder. "April was the first full month of lockdowns and business closings due to the covid-19 outbreak, so nearly every county suffered job losses. But the decline in employment diminished as one moved away from the centers of the nation’s largest cities, according to employment data just released by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics."

Specifically, the most rural counties (those that touch no metropolitan area) lost 10.8 percent of their jobs, rural counties near metro areas lost 11.7%, and the largest metro counties lost 15.1% from March to April, Bishop reports. Rural economies dependent on farming lost 7% of their jobs in that time period, compared to rural counties dependent on recreation, which lost 13.3% of their jobs.

Read more at the Yonder for a deeper statistical breakdown among rural-urban lines.