Population and jobs outside metro areas were boosted by the remote-work surge during the pandemic, but will it last?

Graphs by The Wall Street Journal

"Even in the face of inflation and the risk of recession, the broad economic prospects for rural America may be looking up for the first time in years," with a net gain in population of non-metropolitan counties from mid-2020 through mid-2021, "a sharp shift from the decade preceding the pandemic," report Sarah Chaney Cambon and Andrew Mollica of The Wall Street Journal.

Citing labor-analytics firm Lightcast, they say "Job postings in rural areas increased 52 percent from 2019 through 2021, compared with 11% in big cities." And the Congressional Budget Office estimated that wages grew an average 6.3% a year in rural areas from the end of 2019 through the end of 2021, compared with 5.7% in urban areas. . . . Over the 12 months through April, rural areas logged an average unemployment rate of 4.2%, below the 5.2% jobless rate of big cities."

"Since the pandemic, many are seeing an infusion of remote workers drawn by lower costs, laid-back lifestyles and natural beauty—and worn down by crime and other urban challenges," the Journal reports. "Their presence has helped spur hiring, income gains and home-price growth in rural towns. The question now is whether these transplants are there to stay."

The reporters' object example is Litchfield County, in northwestern Connecticut, two hours from New York City. Realtor Gary Giordano told the Journal, Giordano said. “There's an economic turnaround, for sure. More and more people wanted to leave the city, came up here, bought houses, realized that this might not be a bad place to work.” But for how long, amid high fuel prices and other inflation?

Another sign of the uptick: A website for the region
north of New York City is starting a print magazine.

The rural uptick "could be vulnerable to a national economic downturn," and will "depend on how far the back-to-the-office movement goes," Cambon and Mollica write. "In recent months, office re-openings and waning pandemic disruptions have drawn some workers back to urban life." Another real-estate broker, David Sartirana, told them that "There's definitely been a slowing down."

The New York region may not be the best example "Big, dense cities are particularly susceptible to losing residents because they are expensive and employ the largest share of workers in jobs that can be done remotely in sectors such as finance, management and publishing, according to Princeton University economist Lukas Althoff and co-researchers," the Journal reports.

One of the New York transplants in Litchfield County is Kevin Steck, a software engineer who grew up there. "He usually works part of the week from his Winsted house, with views overlooking a 445-acre lake," the Journal reports. "The other part of the week he sets up his laptop in places such as Brinx, a coffee shop in nearby Torrington. The owners there know that he likes his coffee black." Steck likes that: “It feels good; it feels like you’re part of a tightknit community.”