About two dozen large cities and regions accounted for most of the job growth in the past decade, while rural counties tend to have fewer jobs than they did before the Great Recession, according to a 2019 report from the McKinsey Global Institute. Automation is likely to grow those divisions over the next 10 years.
Colleges could help mitigate some of these trends, such as by adding new pathways to the workforce and making the credential marketplace more transparent, the authors suggested. Yet adults who live in urban areas have higher rates of bachelor’s degree completion than rural residents — a divide that has also widened in recent years, The Atlantic reported.
