August 2017-2018, job growth falters in rural counties

Job growth in rural America continues to lag the rest of the nation, according to the latest data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.  In the 12 months ending this past August, the U.S. added over 1.7 million jobs. But only 38,000 of those new jobs found their way to rural counties, according to a Daily Yonder analysis. More than two-thirds of the new jobs were located in the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, those with more than a million people.  Rural America had 12.9 percent of the nation’s jobs in August 2018 but only garnered 2.2 percent of the jobs created in the previous 12 months.