Regional Matters

South Carolina's recruitment of a Boeing assembly plant to North Charleston in the late 2000s boosted the state's aerospace sector and Charleston's local labor market over the subsequent decade.

The pace of hiring has recently slowed in Virginia, but month-over-month growth in the state continues to outpace the national rate, reversing much of the trend of slower growth seen in the post-COVID-19 expansion.

Customer spending in the Fifth District has been on a decline according to results from the Richmond Fed's business surveys. This pullback was especially true among lower-income individuals.

The Fed's Small Business Credit Survey monitors small business credit access across the United States. Available data for Virginia, Washington, D.C., and North Carolina show broad similarities to national trends — and a few differences.

Data from Fed Communities' Banking Deserts Dashboard show how in-person banking access changed in the Fifth District from 2019 to 2023.

Rural areas were hit hard with labor shortages during COVID-19, more so than their urban counterparts. However, the tides have turned with rural wage growth now exceeding that of urban areas.

College degree attainment is associated with higher labor force participation, and although better data is needed to understand fully, this seems to also be true for those who have some college but no degree.

Recent Immigration into the Fifth District has broadly aided population growth, but especially in states adjoining the DMV (District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia).

Firms continue to innovate and automate, although responses from Fifth District business respondents illustrate that we are in the early days of AI adoption.

This post explores how changes in total population, out-of-the-labor-force population, and unemployment explain employment growth across the Fifth District's rural counties.