Rural counties still haven't regained jobs they lost in first year of pandemic; 60% had fewer jobs in 2022 than in 2019

Rural America's post-pandemic recovery continues to lag behind the rest of the nation. "Last week's monthly job report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was better than expected, but another recent report from the bureau shows rural America still has a way to go to get back to pre-pandemic employment levels," reports Tim Marema of The Daily Yonder. "In April, the bureau released its annual average employment report for 2022. As the name implies, this report takes job data for the entire year. It produces a single average employment number for each county in the U.S. This data provides a longer-term view than monthly reports of how the American economy is performing for working people."

Rural America lost 953,000 jobs in the first year of the pandemic and has added less than 738,000 jobs in the last two years, Marema reports: "In 2022, there were 1.1% fewer jobs in rural counties than in 2019. Metropolitan counties had, on average, about 1% more jobs last year than before the pandemic. . . . The most recent county-level monthly job reinforces the prospects of slow job recovery in rural counties. Rural counties added about 85,000 jobs in February 2023 compared to the previous February, a gain of 0.4%."

Marema also notes: "Six out of every 10 rural counties had fewer jobs in 2022 than in 2019, and a majority of metropolitan counties (56%) had more jobs last year than three years ago." The details vary by region. "States in the Northeast, Great Lakes region, and the Great Plains had a higher percentage of rural counties that lost jobs. . . . Fourteen states saw gains in metropolitan employment while losing jobs in rural counties. . . . Other regions with a larger proportion of counties with job losses were along the Texas border and Gulf, the Black Belt South, coastal California, and parts of the Rocky Mountain West."