The services-dependent category reflects a dominant trend of growth in service sector jobs.
Growth in service sector jobs has been a dominant force in national industrial trends over the past two decades, accounting for 83 percent of new nonmetro jobs during 1979-89. Service sector jobs now permeate most rural economies. Earnings from service-related jobs include a mix made up of consumer services, distributive and business services, wholesale and retail trade, and education. The 323 services-dependent counties derived between 50 and 78 percent of total earnings from services employment during 1987-89.
Services counties, like government counties, are fairly evenly distributed across the Nation with a slightly higher representation in the West (fig. 9). Nearly 40 percent are in the Midwest. These counties, on average, experienced both population increase and population inmigration during the 1980's. Only services counties, of all the economic types, had inmovement of population. Population growth and inmigration occurred in all regions except the Midwest.
Services counties exhibit different degrees of urbanization, although a large majority have some population living in an urban place (table 5). More than 50 percent have some urban population and are not adjacent to a metro area. Another 29 percent have some urban population and are adjacent to a metro area. Only 18 percent have no urban population. (A third of the services counties contain a town/city of at least 10,000 population; a seventh have a city of 20,000 population or more). Depending on their degree of urbanization and proximity to a metro area, services counties are likely to perform different primary economic functions. For example, general trade/service centers are usually more urbanized but not adjacent to a metro area, consumer service centers provide primarily for residential areas, and specialized service centers for special purpose sites, like recreation areas, are near those sites. Seventy services counties were also retirement counties, and 60 were also Federal lands counties, indicating the important role of services in the economies of these types.
Like the government counties, the economies of services counties grew during the 1980's. Total earnings grew 9 percent (more than twice the rate for all nonmetro counties), and earnings from services activity grew 24 percent (nearly twice the rate for all nonmetro counties). Services counties grew slightly faster in total jobs and services jobs than all-nonmetro counties (fig. 10). Gains in two sectors--services with over 800,000 new jobs and government with 76,000 new jobs-- led job growth in the services counties.
Contrary to government counties, the level of well-being for services counties' residents was higher than for all-nonmetro counties. With lower unemployment and a greater share of residents with high school educations, the services counties, on average, had median family income, per capita income, and per capita earnings that were higher than the average in all-nonmetro counties. The average poverty rate was the lowest of any of the economic types. However, an overall 8-percent decline in earnings per job suggests that the prospects for continued higher levels of economic well-being in the 1990's are uncertain.
Table 5--Services-dependent counties:
Selected characteristics
Services All-
counties nonmetro
Item Unit counties
--------------------------- ------- ------- -------
Counties Number 323 2,276
Population, 1990 Thousands 9,594 50,898
Urbanized, 1993(1,2) Percent 82.3 66.0
Population density, 1990(3,4) Number 43.4 36.3
Population change, 1980-90(4) Percent 6.3 .6
Per capita income, 1989(4) Dollars 14,384 13,580
Earnings change, 1979-89:(5)
Total earnings Percent 8.5 3.4
Services earnings do. 23.5 13.2
(1) Persons living in towns of 2,500 population or more.
(2) Percentage of counties in group.
(3) Persons per square mile.
(4) Unweighted county averages.
(5) Calculated from aggregated data.
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