rural employment

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

Each year, USDA’s Economic Research Service provides a snapshot of the rural economy in a report entitled Rural America at a Glance.  The past year witnessed some encouraging trends, as rural employment grew more than 1 percent during the year ending in second-quarter 2015, following several years of stagnation. Rural unemployment also fell below 6 percent in 2015 for the first time since mid-2008.

Despite the positive trend, rural employment in mid-2015 was still 3.2 percent below its pre-recession peak in 2007.  Rural employment growth was also outpaced by an urban employment growth rate of nearly 2 percent over the recent one-year period.

This post is part of the Science Tuesday feature series on the USDA blog. Check back each week as we showcase stories and news from USDA’s rich science and research portfolio.

In the recession of 2007-09 and its aftermath, some areas of the United States fared better than others. In rural America as a whole, the pace of economic recovery has been slow, with attendant impacts on rural residents. Each year, USDA’s Economic Research Service provides a snapshot of the rural economy in a brief report, Rural America at a Glance.

The 2014 report shows that in several major respects, recent trends in rural America parallel those in the Nation generally.