Rural America’s Post-Pandemic Job Recovery Varies by Industry and Region

Rural America’s recovery from the job losses of the pandemic has been a lot like the recovery from the Great Recession — slow and difficult.

Annual employment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that in 2023, nonmetropolitan counties still had not quite recovered all the jobs they lost during the pandemic. Nonmetro counties were down 101,800 jobs compared to their pre-pandemic numbers, representing a 0.5% decline in employment.