New data show small local firms create less than a third of new jobs in rural areas and are unreliable employment sources because many fail within their first 5 years of business. Local planners should consider mix of corporate affiliates offering potential of many jobs and small independent firms. (NEC)

Among nonmetro retirement counties, those with a relatively high (over 16 percent) proportion of elderly were economically much stronger than total retirement counties. Strengths of retirement counties included rapid growth in population and employment and moderate increases in income. Potential weaknesses were reduced public spending for…

The structure of nonmetro employment has become increasingly diverse and decreasingly agricultural. The precise policy implications of these shifts are not self-evident, but the increasingly nonagricultural character of the rural economy is at the heart of the population turnaround. (Author/KR)

Analysis of effects of local educational levels on employment growth found that growth benefits of higher schooling levels during the 1970s were 14 times greater for metro than nonmetro commuting zones. During the 1980s, higher education levels did not significantly affect employment growth in metro or nonmetro zones; higher dropout rates were…