Rural jobs expand at less than half the rate of metro

Rural America continued to add jobs in July, according to figures just released by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. There are 124,000 more jobs in rural counties this July compared to July 2015, according to the BLS.  The pace of job growth in rural America, however, was a fraction of that in metropolitan areas. While the number of jobs in rural counties increased by 4.8 percent in the past year, job growth in metropolitan counties was 13.3 percent – more than twice the rural rate. Metropolitan counties added 2.5 million jobs in the last year.  This is a continuing story. For the past few years, job growth has been concentrated in metropolitan areas. Job growth in rural counties has been slower than in the cities – and concentrated in oil and gas producing counties.  Unemployment rates have come down everywhere, but unemployment remains a bigger problem in rural counties than in metro areas. The unemployment rate in urban counties has dropped from 5.5 percent to 5.1 percent in the last year. In the nation’s most rural counties, the rate has declined from 5.9 percent to 5.6 percent in July of this year.