Rural Employment Trends in Recession and Recovery

This report examines the effects of the recent major recession and gradual recovery on county employment and unemployment rates, with an emphasis on rural America. The recession was marked by a 6-percent contraction in nonfarm employment and a doubling of the national unemployment rate between 2007 and 2009. Geographic variation in both the employment effects of the recession and the pace of job growth during the recovery has been striking, with large differences between regions, between metro and nonmetro counties, and between more and less rural nonmetro counties. We document these geographic differences and analyze their causes, demonstrating the relative importance of factors such as the county's industrial composition, the age structure of the county's population, and the educational status of its workforce.