Job gains, especially rural, stagnate over past three months; most counties are still below pre-pandemic levels

Employment in June 2021 compared to June 2021, by rurality and relative gain or loss.
Daily Yonder map; click the image to enlarge it or here for the interactive version.

Nationwide employment numbers have stagnated over the past three months and barely inched up in June, especially in rural areas. "Between May and June, the nation’s net gain in employment nationally amounted to just 0.3 percent. Rural America added about 93,000 jobs in June, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was an increase of just one half of one percent over May," Bill Bishop reports for The Daily Yonder. "And, as the map above shows, most U.S. counties had fewer jobs this June than June of 2019, before the Covid pandemic began." Nationwide employment in June 2021 was at 96.7% of June 2019 levels.

Metro counties lost a greater share of jobs in the early months of the pandemic, but have bounced back more quickly than rural areas. Twenty Republican-led states reduced unemployment benefits in June in an effort to force more people to return to work, The Washington Post reports. Those states did see more workers over age 25 return to work, but didn't really gain net jobs because those workers essentially elbowed out teen workers. Health concerns and childcare difficulties are probably the biggest reason people still aren't coming back to work, one expert said.

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