Report: Rural America at risk of losing another generation of young workers

A new report examines the tech barriers to career advancement for workers in rural communities and ways to address them

September 24, 2024

As technology continues to rapidly change the labor force and provide more opportunities for career advancement and upward mobility, rural America is at a disadvantage and at risk of losing a younger generation of the workforce. A lack of access to technology to connect to work and education opportunities is fueling a desire to leave rural communities for urban areas, according to a new report.

While there’s been a big push to provide broadband access to rural parts of the country with a lot of progress made, that access still remains out of reach for many rural residents, according to the report released today by the Center on Rural Innovation and University of Phoenix Career Institute.

“Geography becomes a roadblock where workers living in rural America – regardless of age or background – are more than twice as likely to feel limited in their employment opportunities compared to nonrural counterparts,” according to the G.R.O.W. Generating Rural Opportunities in the Workplace report.

It finds that the slower adoption of technology infrastructure in rural communities is leaving workers there behind when it comes to skills development, implementation of AI, and greater flexibility. Factors that are providing opportunities for upward mobility to the workforce as a whole.

The report also finds that 18% of people living in rural areas rarely or never have access to personal computers compared to just 7% in nonrural areas, and half of those rural residents travel outside their communities in order to get that access.

Rural workers also face a disadvantage when it comes to educational opportunities.

Roughly 76% of people from all areas of the country agree that higher education and continuing education are worthwhile pursuits, but only 48% of workers in rural areas are satisfied with their access to higher education compared to 76% in nonrural areas.

That gap, according to the report, is leaving 49% of rural workers feeling they are being held back in their careers because of where they live compared to 30% among their counterparts in nonrural areas.

With limits on access to education needed for career advancement, the report finds 69% of rural workers have considered relocating to pursue career opportunities elsewhere with younger workers more likely to say that.

“Resulting dissatisfaction could lose rural America critical community members, especially its future generation and its diversity,” states the report.

To address these challenges, the report calls for a “concerted approach to educational access and collaboration across government, employer, and education sectors to gain access to the workforce trends of today’s economy.”

Some of the top priorities for rural workers that are identified: a need for networking, professional development, and staying at the forefront of AI.

To see more details in the G.R.O.W. Generating Rural Opportunities in the Workplace report, click here.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.