Since 2010, job growth in Ohio’s rural areas has been strong, nearly comparable to the growth in the state’s major cities, according to an economist at Ohio State University.

Between 2010 and 2017, only six states had better rural job growth than Ohio, says Mark Partridge, an economics professor at OSU’s College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences (CFAES).

“As long as this economic expansion continues, rural Ohio is going to fare pretty well compared to the rest of the U.S.,” Partridge says.

Between 2010 and 2018, Ohio’s nonmetropolitan areas, with populations less than 50,000 and not within commuting distance of major cities, had a 7.6% increase in the number of jobs — nearly 10 times the national average. During the same period, the growth of jobs in Ohio’s major cities was only slightly higher — a 9.2% increase.

The uptick in jobs has been significant in Columbus and to a lesser degree in Cincinnati; but in Ohio’s other major cities, the number of jobs has decreased, stayed about the same or increased only modestly, Partridge says.

And in Ohio’s rural counties without connections to cities with more than 10,000 people, the corresponding job growth rate was 8.4%, he adds.

The fact that Ohio’s rural and urban job growth rates are nearly comparable is pretty significant, Partridge notes.

“That’s not typical and is a really good sign,” he says.

Not all of rural Ohio is faring well in terms of attracting new employers. Many rural areas in Ohio with economies closely tied to agriculture are still suffering from downturns in the prices and demand for soybeans, corn and other commodities.

Partridge, who is also chair of the C. William Swank Program in Rural-Urban Policy at CFAES, will be the keynote speaker at the May 8 Spring 2019 Outlook and Policy Conference, “Challenges and Opportunities for Economic Development in Ohio.” The event is hosted by the CFAES Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics (AEDE). Partridge’s talk, “Does an Urbanizing World Still Need Rural America?” will be at 12:15 p.m. during the conference in the Fawcett Center for Tomorrow on OSU’s Columbus campus.

Other speakers

There will be several other speakers at the conference, including:

• Bill LaFayette. LaFayette owns Regionomics, a Columbus company that offers data on economic development in Ohio.

• Edward “Ned” Hill. Hill is a professor of economic development at OSU’s John Glenn College of Public Affairs

• Zoë Plakias. Plakias is an assistant professor at AEDE.

• Nan Whaley. Whaley is mayor of Dayton.

• Tom Johnson. Johnson is mayor of Somerset and executive-in-residence at, Ohio University.

Some rural areas in Ohio that have experienced solid job growth include Wooster, Van Wert and Athens.

“They’re not booming, but they’re definitely hanging in there,” Partridge says.

In Holmes County in northeast Ohio, just south of Wooster, the job growth rate is several times the national average for a rural area. Much of the growth is in small businesses started by individuals who have lived in the area awhile, he says.

And small Ohio towns such as Wapakoneta, Celina and Urbana have fared better in attracting new jobs than the booming Columbus metropolitan area. “Such success in small rural towns is rather remarkable when compared to the rest of the country,” Partridge says.

To register for the upcoming Spring 2019 Outlook and Policy Conference, which is free and open to the public, visit go.osu.edu/springoutlook.

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