“Job gains in rural America have returned,” says the Daily Yonder, citing Labor Department data that show there were 232,000 more jobs in rural counties than one year earlier. The Yonder says rural counties had a job-growth rate of 1.2 percent a year while the urban rate was 1.8 percent. The unemployment rate in rural America was 5.4 percent in April, the most recent month for which data are available, higher than the urban rate of 5 percent but down from the 6.2 percent of April 2014.
Along with its story, the Yonder published an interactive map giving detailed employment data for each county. “The map shows some reversals of long-term trends,” said the Yonder. Employment is down in rural Texas and North Dakota counties due to lower petroleum prices. “But most of the country, rural and urban, is showing good job growth.”