Rural workforce participation varies substantially by age, geography, education, and economic period. In the United States, the nonmetro labor force participation rate for people age 16 and older was 57.0% in 2023, compared with 64.9% in metro areas, according to the USDA Economic Research Service’s Rural America at a Glance: 2024 Edition.
Contents
- Rural participation rate benchmarks
- Participation by age group
- Employment and unemployment
- Education and workforce capacity
- Race, ethnicity, and industry
- Historical shocks and demographic forces
Rural participation rate benchmarks
The broadest comparison uses the labor force participation rate for people age 16 and older. The 2023 nonmetro rate was 57.0%, while the metro rate was 64.9%, a difference visible in the USDA’s national rural comparison. These are participation measures for their stated geographies and year, not estimates of the share of all residents who hold jobs.
The USDA’s Employment & Education - Rural Employment and Labor Force series also reports a separate prime-age measure. Nonmetro prime-age participation was 79.3% in 2024. It was 79.5% in 2008, at the beginning of the Great Recession, then reached a recent low of 76.3% in 2015 before measuring 77.7% in 2019.
For the full age-16-and-older measure, nonmetro labor force participation stayed near 57% from 2016 through 2019. Metro participation stayed near 64.5% during that period. A separate USDA Rural America at a Glance: 2019 Edition reported a 58% nonmetro participation rate in 2018.
These benchmarks should be read with their definitions intact. A prime-age rate describes a narrower age range than the all-adult rate, and a nonmetro observation describes a different geography from a metro observation. Treating them as interchangeable would obscure the underlying pattern.
Participation by age group
Age is one of the clearest separators in rural workforce participation. In 2023, the rural rate was 61.2% for people ages 16 to 24, 78.7% for ages 25 to 54, 60.0% for ages 55 to 64, and 16.6% for people age 65 and older. The age groups therefore describe very different relationships with paid work, schooling, retirement, and other responsibilities.
The metro comparison for the same year was higher in each listed group: 60.4% for ages 16 to 24, 84.7% for ages 25 to 54, 68.5% for ages 55 to 64, and 19.8% for people age 65 and older. The rural rate was slightly higher for ages 16 to 24, while the metro rate was higher for the three older groups.
| Age group | Rural rate, 2023 | Metro rate, 2023 |
|---|---|---|
| 16–24 | 61.2% | 60.4% |
| 25–54 | 78.7% | 84.7% |
| 55–64 | 60.0% | 68.5% |
| 65 and older | 16.6% | 19.8% |
The USDA reports that rural participation increased for every listed age group from 2015 to 2023. The increase was about 3.0 percentage points for ages 16 to 24, 2.4 points for ages 25 to 54, 1.2 points for ages 55 to 64, and 1.1 points for people age 65 and older. Those are changes across the specified period, not forecasts.
The difference between the youth and older-adult figures matters for community planning. A rural all-age rate can move with the age composition of the population, so the age-specific measures provide more context than one headline percentage alone.
Employment and unemployment
Participation indicates whether people are working or actively seeking work; employment counts the people employed. The USDA reported that nonmetro employment increased to 20.0 million employed residents in 2024, growing 0.6% from 2023 to 2024. The annual-average nonmetro unemployment rate was 4.0% in 2024, up from 3.7% in 2023.
The longer employment series shows the effect of the Great Recession and the pandemic period. Nonmetro employment was 21.0 million in 2007, before the Great Recession. It was 19.9 million in 2019, or 95% of its 2007 level. Annual-average nonmetro employment fell to 18.9 million in 2020, a 4.9% decrease from 2019 to 2020.
| Nonmetro employment measure | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Employment before the Great Recession | 21.0 million | 2007 |
| Employment before the pandemic | 19.9 million | 2019 |
| Annual-average employment low listed here | 18.9 million | 2020 |
| Employment after recovery | 20.0 million | 2024 |
From 2020 to 2023, nonmetro employment grew an average of 1.6% per year. The USDA describes that recovery as adding an average of 315,000 employed residents per year. Total rural employment then grew 0.9% from 2022 to 2023, while rural unemployment was about 4% in 2023, according to the 2024 rural overview.
The 2024 employment total and the 2024 unemployment rate are annual measures in the USDA employment series. They should not be read as a monthly snapshot or as a projection of future labor-market conditions.
Education and workforce capacity
Educational attainment changed markedly in rural areas between 2000 and 2023. The rural share of adults age 25 and older with an associate degree increased from 5.7% to 10.2%, according to the USDA’s Rural Education page. The share with a bachelor’s degree increased from 9.7% to 14.7%, and the share with an advanced degree increased from 5.2% to 8.3%.
At the other end of the attainment distribution, the rural share of adults age 25 and older without a high school diploma fell from 23.7% in 2000 to 11.1% in 2023. The changes describe the composition of the adult population, not a direct calculation of participation caused by education.
The USDA’s Educational attainment in rural America rises, but urban areas widen the degree gap reports that the rural share of adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher rose from 14.9% in 2000 to 23.0% in 2023. The comparable urban share rose from 26.3% to 38.3%. As a result, the rural-urban gap widened from 11.4 percentage points in 2000 to 15.3 points in 2023.
Earnings also differed by geography and attainment in 2023. Median earnings for nonmetro working adults were $42,407, compared with $52,109 for metro peers. Within the nonmetro group, median earnings were $31,519 for workers with less than a high school diploma and $52,837 for workers with a bachelor’s degree, based on the USDA rural education source.
These figures connect workforce capacity with the availability and rewards of education, while leaving the causal relationship open. They are descriptive measures for the stated populations and year.
Race, ethnicity, and industry
The racial and ethnic composition of the rural workforce varied by industry in 2019. Hispanic workers held 14.4% of rural agriculture jobs and 12.8% of rural accommodation and food-services jobs. They accounted for 8.7% of rural manufacturing jobs, 7.8% of rural government jobs, 7.5% of rural retail jobs, and 6.2% of rural health-care and social-assistance jobs.
The USDA’s Race and ethnicity of rural labor force vary by industry also reported that Black workers accounted for 9.7% of rural manufacturing jobs and 2.4% of rural agriculture jobs in 2019. Asian workers made up 3.3% of rural accommodation and food-services employment.
| Rural industry or sector | Reported group share | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture, Hispanic workers | 14.4% | 2019 |
| Accommodation and food services, Hispanic workers | 12.8% | 2019 |
| Manufacturing, Hispanic workers | 8.7% | 2019 |
| Manufacturing, Black workers | 9.7% | 2019 |
| Health care and social assistance, Hispanic workers | 6.2% | 2019 |
| Accommodation and food services, Asian workers | 3.3% | 2019 |
The percentages are industry-specific shares of rural jobs for the named group. They should not be combined into a single rural workforce total, and they do not describe the participation rate of each group.
Historical shocks and demographic forces
Rural participation changed differently across major periods. From 2008 to 2016, rural labor force participation fell 4 percentage points, compared with a 3-point decline in metro areas, according to the USDA employment series. Rural unemployment rose from 6% in 2008 to 11% in 2010 during and after the Great Recession.
For people ages 25 to 64, the USDA’s Labor force participation decreased less in rural areas than in urban areas at the onset of COVID-19 pandemic reports a 2.6-percentage-point rural decline from 2007 to 2019. The comparable urban decline was 0.7 percentage point. During the pandemic’s 2019-to-2020 interval, rural participation for ages 25 to 64 declined 0.6 percentage point, while urban participation declined 1.0 percentage point.
Demographic context accompanied the 2018 nonmetro-metro participation gap. The 2019 rural overview associated that analysis with an average age of 48.9 years in nonmetro areas versus 46.1 years in metro areas. It also reported that the share of residents with a disability was 16.5% in nonmetro areas and 10.9% in metro areas.
Together, the period-specific measures show why rural workforce participation is best read as a set of connected indicators: participation, employment, unemployment, age structure, education, earnings, and industry composition. Each statistic retains its own geography, population definition, and measurement period.