Final Score: Rural Counties for the Win

Drew Repp, Content Manager, Emsi

McKinsey estimates that by 2020, the world will face a shortage of more than 40 million college workers. It’s a shortage that promises to affect and exacerbate every other type of scarcity problem, according to Moscow, Idaho-based Emsi, which specializes in data-driven economic modeling. Without highly skilled workers, innovation that solves global problems, wages that drive economic prosperity, and public investment that funds infrastructure and education, all fall by the wayside.

In November, Emsi released its fourth annual Talent Attraction Scorecard, which shows the large counties (100,000 and above population) and small counties (5,000 to 100,000) that aren’t just importing talent. They’re making strides with a pre-existing population that’s significantly smaller than average. More importantly, they are largely rural counties in the West and the South, and they’re punching above their weight in the talent attractiveness arena.

“By leveraging their existing strengths, many communities across the country are spurring talent attraction,” explains Drew Repp, Emsi’s content manager. “Western cities, small southern counties, and the Sunbelt are all capitalizing on their unique traits, and not chasing something they aren’t.”

What Worked Before Works Now

Repp says the Scorecard reinforces what many in the West are feeling: “Cities with outdoor amenities and an attractive lifestyle are luring workers. In the South, small counties are seeing massive capital investments by energy companies, resulting in both construction and new jobs. The Sunbelt continues to take advantage of its post-WWII population growth, now coupling the past migration with skilled jobs. Whether conscious of it or not, these regions are garnering benefits from existing assets.”

Examples? Repp says Fort Collins, Colorado, and Kalispell, Montana, are capturing remote workers, potentially as a result of creative class and digital workers fleeing expensive coastal markets. “Respite is found in these local markets largely because of what they’ve always been: affordable and with accessible outdoors,” he relates. “Cameron Parish in Louisiana hasn’t shied away from being a transportation and petrochemical center on the Gulf Coast, as seen by existing companies making major investments. The result has been an 88% increase in jobs over the last five years.”

The Talent Attraction Scorecard takes a deeper dive into the trends that can help identify where talent is currently developing, the next potential hot spots and markets that are cooling. “Marshall County, West Virginia, has steadily climbed more than 2,000 spots to No. 40 among counties with fewer than 100,000 people,” Repp illustrates. “Meanwhile, Travis County, Texas, home to Austin, ranked No. 1 in 2016 among large counties and has since plummeted while other counties in the Austin metro have been fast climbers.”