The Rural Dimensions of Workforce Development

Last month, a major three-volume book, Investing in America’s Workforce: Improving Outcomes for Workers and Employers, was launched at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York[1]. This blog focuses on just one of the 90 chapters, The Rural Dimensions of Workforce Development[2]. The chapter makes six main points. Broad economic forces that are radically shaping sectors, industries, and occupations, affect all parts of the country, whether urban or rural. Increasing use of technology while leading to higher levels of productivity has reduced the overall demand for labor, especially for such occupations as skilled trades and plant, process, and machine operators. The labor market is being increasingly split between high-skilled high-paid jobs and lower-skilled low-paid jobs. The result has been widespread dislocation across the United States, including North Carolina. Certain characteristics of rural economies magnify these forces. Lower population density and remoteness mean reduced economies of scale, higher transportation costs, and less efficient service delivery. Rural areas tend to have older populations, either because young people leave or retirees move in, and are increasingly diverse as immigrants take up low-wage jobs in agriculture, food processing, and hospitality. Rural businesses tend to be smaller and have limited capacity to engage in regional or global markets. They are constrained by a limited pool of workers with the right education, skills, and experience, and the workers are faced with fewer career progression opportunities and lower wages. There are significant differences between rural areas. Rural economies are differentiated primarily by their distance from metropolitan areas and by the strength of [...]