New ERS Report on Rural Labor Force

Low-Skill Employment and the Changing Economy of Rural America
By Robert Gibbs, Lorin Kusmin, and John Cromartie

This study reports trends in rural low-skill employment in the 1990s and their impact on the rural workforce. The share of rural jobs classified as low-skill fell by 2.2 percentage points between 1990 and 2000, twice the decline of the urban low-skill employment share, but much less than the decline of the 1980s. Employment shifts from low-skill to skilled occupations within industries, rather than changes in industry mix, explain virtually all of the decline in the rural low-skill employment share. The share decline was particularly large for rural Black women, many of whom moved out of low-skill blue-collar work into service occupations, while the share of rural Hispanics who held low-skill jobs increased. Economic Research Report No. (ERR10) 38 pp, October 2005.

For more information contact Robert Gibbs, RGibbs@ers.usda.gov

This report can be downloaded at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/ERR10/