Data 4 Thought

Five takeaways from our new labor force map

Two in five U.S. counties now have fewer workers than they did 20 years ago. Here is where, and how fast it spread.

Published:September 16th 2026

We rebuilt our county labor force map this week and added data through July 2026. Five things stood out to us. We usually give you a lot of words. Today the charts do the talking.

1. Two in five counties are shrinking

A county is in structural loss when its civilian labor force, as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is more than 10% below where it stood 20 years earlier. In 2010 that was 7% of counties. It is now 40%, the highest on record. At the end of 2025, the data behind our first map, it was 33%. In June we reported that the count had grown by 132 counties in a year.

Line chart of the share of U.S. counties in structural labor force loss, every month from January 2010 through July 2026. The line climbs from 7% of counties, or 219, at the start to 40%, or 1,281 of 3,214, in July 2026, which is the highest reading on record. It passes the previous peak of 38.8% set in May 2020.

Counties whose labor force is more than 10% below the same month 20 years earlier. Source: BLS LAUS.

2. The first seven months were the weakest since 2020

Counties normally add workers over the first seven months of the year. This year 38% of them lost workers instead, against a long-run figure of 21%. Second worst was last year.

Stacked bar chart, one bar per year from 1990 to 2026, showing the share of U.S. counties whose labor force fell between January and July of the same year. The coral share is 38% in 2026 and 35% in 2025, against a 1990 to 2019 median of 21%. Only 2020, at 61%, was worse.

January and July fall in the same year, so this comparison is not affected by the January change in population estimates. Source: BLS LAUS.

3. Some states are sliding almost everywhere

Our map puts a county on negative watch when its labor force is below both a year ago and three years ago. In five states, most counties carry that flag.

Horizontal bar chart of the five states with the largest share of counties on negative watch in July 2026. Vermont leads at 93%, or 13 of 14 counties, then Michigan at 87% with 72 of 83, Wyoming at 83% with 19 of 23, Colorado at 56% with 36 of 64, and Illinois at 49% with 50 of 102. Only Illinois has any counties on positive watch, with four.

Negative watch: labor force below both a year ago and three years ago. Source: BLS LAUS.

Michigan is the clearest case. Its three largest labor markets are holding. Almost everything else is not.

Map of Michigan's 83 counties for July 2026. Seventy-two are shaded coral for negative watch and eleven are gray. The gray exceptions include the Detroit metro counties of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb, which are labeled. No Michigan county is on positive watch.

The counties shaded coral hold 54% of Michigan's workers. Source: BLS LAUS.

Colorado is fourth on the list, and it is the opposite story from Michigan. In Michigan the big metro counties are holding while the rest of the state is on negative watch. In Colorado the decline starts with the big counties: every one of the ten largest is shrinking, Denver included, and the flags have not caught up yet.

Horizontal bar chart of the year-over-year change in labor force for Colorado's ten largest counties, July 2025 to July 2026. Every bar is negative, from Larimer at 0.8% down to Mesa at 2.7%. Denver, the largest at 448,000 workers, is down 1.8%. Only Boulder is on negative watch.

Only Boulder is on negative watch, which also asks for a three-year decline. Source: BLS LAUS.

4. It's not all doom and gloom...

Some states have labor forces with positive momentum. The following chart shows the top five states by percent of counties on positive watch.

Horizontal bar chart of the five states with the largest share of counties on positive watch in July 2026. South Carolina leads at 85%, or 39 of 46 counties, then Nevada at 76% with 13 of 17, North Dakota at 68% with 36 of 53, Arkansas at 52% with 39 of 75, and Alaska at 48% with 11 of 23. No South Carolina county is on negative watch.

Positive watch: labor force climbing off a multi-year low and above where it was three years ago. South Carolina is the strongest of the five. Source: BLS LAUS.

Look at the South Carolina map. We looked for a reason and found migration, not a factory boom. Its counties gained people from other states, and its participation rate rose while the national rate fell. If you know the local story, we want to hear it.

Map of South Carolina's 46 counties for July 2026. Thirty-nine are shaded teal for positive watch and seven are gray, including Orangeburg, Georgetown and Cherokee, which are labeled. No county in the state is on negative watch.

The counties shaded teal hold 95% of South Carolina's workers. Source: BLS LAUS.

5. Even the boom counties have stopped

Hyper-growth counties are those whose labor force is more than 40% above its level 20 years ago. Our original key takeaway back in March was that U.S. counties had bifurcated into the haves and have-nots when it came to their labor forces. In 2026 the have counties are stalling, and some are shrinking. Two years ago, 3% of them were shrinking. Today 48% are.

Line chart of the share of hyper-growth counties whose labor force is below the same month a year earlier, monthly from 2010 to 2026. The share sits near 2% from 2022 through 2024, then climbs to 48% by July 2026. The pandemic peak was 77% in April 2020.

Hyper-growth means a labor force more than 40% above its level 20 years earlier. Source: BLS LAUS.

Some of the best known growth counties in the country peaked in the past two years and have been falling since. A few are still climbing. Flip through the image carousel and see.

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Look up your own county

The map is free. Press play to watch the last 16 years, pick your state, and hover any county to see its trend.

What are you finding?

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What this does and does not tell you

The labor force counts people who are working or looking for work, where they live. It falls when people retire, stop looking, or move away, so a shrinking labor force is not the same as rising unemployment.

Every figure comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics program called Local Area Unemployment Statistics. The 2026 months are estimates and will be revised next spring. In January 2026 the household survey adopted new population estimates that were not applied to earlier months, which takes about 0.2 percentage points off any comparison that crosses that month. The January to July figures in the second chart avoid it entirely.

The full method is on the visualization page, and the code is public at github.com/Data4ThePeople/laus.

Common questions

What is the labor force?

It is the number of people age 16 and over who are working or actively looking for work, counted where they live. It leaves out people who have retired or stopped looking.

Why compare each county to 20 years ago?

A one-year change in a small county is mostly noise. Twenty years covers a full generation of workers entering and leaving, so it shows the structure of a local economy rather than one good or bad year.

What does structural loss mean?

A labor force more than 10% below the same month 20 years earlier. The name is ours, not the government's.

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