Current rural job recovery is above average, but most rural counties had fewer jobs in April than after Great Recession

Job gains and losses from April 2010 to April 2021; Daily Yonder map with Bureau of Labor Statistics data.
Click the image to enlarge it or click here for the interactive version.

As of April 2020, the United States had regained 96.7 percent of the employment that it had in April 2019—some 5.2 million jobs shy of 100%—and rural America had regained 97.1% of its jobs, according to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics figures. But those rural job numbers are still worse off when considering the trends of the past decade, including just before the pandemic. 

"In April 2010, rural counties had 14.1% of the nation’s jobs, Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing report for The Daily Yonder. "By April of this year, rural counties had 13% of the nation’s jobs. The major metros (those with more than a million people) increased their share of the nation’s jobs from 56.7% to 58% in the same time period. More than half of all rural counties (56.7%) had fewer jobs in April 2021 than they had eleven years earlier. Among metropolitan counties, 31.1% had fewer jobs in April of this year compared to April 2010."

Click here for more analysis and graphics from the Yonder, including an interactive county-level map.