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What’s going on with Job Growth in Rural South Dakota?
December 15th, 2009 by Mike Knutson
Last week I published a post about a study claiming that rural communities were more “prosperous” than most people believe (click here to view a map detailing which counties the study considers prosperous). The study used a non-traditional means of measuring prosperity (it didn’t include income and population growth as factors), which explains why some of the communities deemed prosperous could have stagnant economies and outmigration.
Today, however, we have additional research suggesting that much of America’s western Heartland has fared well in terms of job losses during the economic down turn.
In an article titled “Location, Location, Location,” Daily Yonder reporters Bill Bishop and Roberto Gallardo note severe job losses in rural Alabama (and the Southeast US) and rural Michigan (and the eastern Midwest) from December 2007 until October 2009.
Most of us are aware of the automobile industry’s impact on job losses in Michigan and Ohio, but the Daily Yonder article highlights the industries demise is also affecting rural Alabama.
I appreciated that the article provided a link to the data (in an Excel spreadsheet) used in generating this report. I downloaded information for South Dakota and then segregated the ten “most urban” counties from the remaining rural counties. Click here to download my spreadsheet. (See note at bottom for my definition of “most urban”).
It was interesting to note that the “most urban” counties in SD lost 680 jobs, while the remaining rural counties gained 1787. This surprised me. Can small, rural communities in SD be doing better than their more urban counterparts?
We know that many of our midsized communities in SD have struggled with manufacturing loses, but I’d be interested in understanding more about what’s going on. How is it that the smaller rural counties have fared better in employment terms? If you have thoughts on the issue, I’d be interested in hearing them.
Note: While all of SD, except Sioux Falls and Rapid City are generally considered rural, I identified the 10 most urban counties by nine largest communities and then added Lincoln to the list because of its relationship to Sioux Falls.
Map Source: Bill Bishop and Roberto Gallardo @ The Daily Yonder
Tags: Daily Yonder, job creation, job lose
Posted in Economic Development, In the News, Rural | Comments (
2 )
December 16th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Mike,
I enjoyed your statistics-filled post yesterday (it’s the closet economics major in me). I wanted to highlight a couple of additional findings that I thought were interesting. First (and I have to admit that I’m surprised you missed this Mike!), we have to congratulate the state of South Dakota for having the least number of jobs lost from December 2007 to October 2009. Literally, South Dakota’s gain of 0.3% (1,098 jobs) was the best in the nation. Only two other states (Texas, 0.1%; North Dakota, 0.0%) had job gains or held steady rather than losses.
Also, I think it’s interesting to note that Bishop and Gallardo chose to classify counties as urban, rural or exurban, and by that classification in South Dakota, only exurban counties hold a negative job growth rate. The classification you used in your analysis (comparing the ten most populous counties with the ‘rest’ of us) brings the urban areas negative largely because those smaller hubs (Watertown, Brookings, Yankton) have experienced job losses that offset small gains Rapid City. And, as it turns out, Rapid City is propping Sioux Falls up by offsetting their 0.2% job loss with a 1.5% gain.
December 16th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Lindsey,
Unlike yourself, I’m NOT a “closet economist,” so I’m confident that I missed a ton of good stuff in the Daily Yonder’s research. On additional stat that did catch my eye from the research is that Custer County, SD gained over 806. That’s a lot. I wonder what’s going on there?