Despite Falling Unemployment, Urban Employment Outpaces Rural Growth

WASHINGTON, DC – When the Great Recession hit the nation in 2008 and 2009, employment growth in both cities and rural areas fell by 5 percent. Since then however, employment in urban areas has outpaced the growth in rural-America according to the Economic Research Service (ERS). Growth in urban areas has averaged 1.5 percent over the past ten years while job growth in rural areas averages 73 percent less (.4 percent average annual rate). ERS researchers suggest these differences in employment growth rates may be related in part to differences in population growth. The slowest employment growth occurred in the same areas that had negative population growth (rural counties with a population of less than 20,000). Either way, employment growth since 2010 was faster than population growth in all groups of counties, which indicates less unemployment nationwide.