I was going to write that the economic stats at the back of this month's Prairie Business show more evidence of the hollowing out of rural South Dakota. The PB jobs chart shows South Dakota losing more than 7000 jobs over 2010. That's a 1.7% decline. The chart also shows the top three South Dakota metros losing a few jobs but the other eleven all gaining.
Alas, someone at PB seems to have copied the wrong spreadsheet. I go straight to the South Dakota Department of Labor, click on the Not Seasonally Adjusted data, load the table... and find employment up 1.7% in South Dakota, from 412,168 in December 2009 to 419,030 in December 2010.
The PB editors also mixed up columns on some cities. Here are the accurate jobs numbers for South Dakota's major metros:
| Dec09 jobs | Dec09 unemp | Dec10 jobs | Dec10 unemp | jobs chg | jobs chg % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statewide | 412,168 | 5.30% | 419,030 | 4.90% | 6,862 | 1.7% |
| Sioux Falls MSA | 122,690 | 4.90% | 122,660 | 4.90% | -30 | 0.0% |
| Rapid City MSA | 62,260 | 5.20% | 61,895 | 5.20% | -365 | -0.6% |
| Aberdeen MiSA | 22,375 | 3.60% | 22,345 | 3.90% | -30 | -0.1% |
| Brookings MiSA | 18,280 | 4.00% | 18,375 | 4.00% | 95 | 0.5% |
| Watertown MiSA | 17,730 | 5.40% | 17,800 | 4.70% | 70 | 0.4% |
| Spearfish MiSA | 12,755 | 4.70% | 12,795 | 4.60% | 40 | 0.3% |
| Mitchell MiSA | 12,160 | 4.90% | 12,420 | 4.00% | 260 | 2.1% |
| Pierre MiSA | 11,685 | 3.30% | 11,855 | 3.40% | 170 | 1.5% |
| Yankton MiSA | 11,075 | 5.10% | 10,990 | 4.80% | -85 | -0.8% |
| Huron MiSA | 9,280 | 3.90% | 9,315 | 3.80% | 35 | 0.4% |
| Vermillion MiSA | 7,555 | 3.70% | 7,490 | 3.70% | -65 | -0.9% |
The big-town job-growth champs for 2010 are Mitchell and Pierre. Among counties, the job growth champs were Buffalo, Dewey, and Ziebach counties, which all enjoyed double-digit percentage job growth from Dec. 2009 to Dec. 2010. The biggest job losers were Miner, Deuel, and Hand counties (6.7%, 5.8%, and 4.6%, respectively). Those three at the bottom are particularly disappointing, since those counties have some of the most visible and active rural economic development programs in the state (see Miner's Rural Learning Center, Deuel's Digging into Deuel, and Hand's On Hand Development Corporation).
Overall, 30 counties saw job growth; 31 saw job losses; 5 held steady. A number of smaller counties managed to keep their heads above water on the job front, which is a better picture than painted by the erroneous chart in Prairie Business.