Employment Linkages from a Modified Shift-Share Analysis: An Illinois Example

Weak economic conditions in rural areas are reflected in labor markets. In rural Illinois counties the labor force,defined as those employed plus those looking for work, declined by an average of one percent per year from 1980 to 1987, and the average annual loss of the employed labor force was even greater (1.4 percent). The urban counties of Illinois had growth in both the labor force and the employed labor force of 0.6 percent per year over the same time period! The purposes of this study are: (l) to demonstrate the applicability of using a modification of shift -share analysis to examine the recent economic performance of Illinois counties heavily dependent on production agriculture, (2) to determine whether any specific sectors in farm dependent counties exhibit competitive advantages, and (3) to examine the effect of growth in base sectors on the performance of nonbase sectors.