Ag jobs decline, hospital jobs growing
Southern Indiana Business Report
Greene County is a southwestern Indiana county that has long relied on agriculture and mining to provide local jobs and wages but is transitioning to new employment patterns that are enmeshed in the growing fields of health care, managerial services, and advanced manufacturing.
Greene County’s population is 32,006, and the employment in the county is 7,492 as of 2022Q2. The workforce in the county has been traditionally reliant on agriculture with over 350 local jobs in the industry and a location quotient of 10.65 (meaning that agricultural employment in the county is more than 10 times higher than the national average); however, employment in the industry is forecast to shrink by 1.4% annually over the next decade. A self-employment level of 13.2% for Greene County reflects the role that agriculture plays (compared to a Radius regional average of only 7.9% self-employment).
Up until the past decade, coal mining was also a backbone industry for Greene County, due to the outcropping of the Illinois Basin coal seams, which provided 105 jobs in Greene County as recently as 2015. The closure of surface coal mines in and around Greene County has reduced coal mining employment to only eight jobs today.
Other industries are growing in Greene County at the same time that the traditional sectors are fading as employment opportunities. Hospital employment is one of the highest employment industries in the county, with 735 jobs and a location quotient of 2.41, growing at a 4.8% rate over the last 10 years.
Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services is a sector that is growing in Greene County, with 312 jobs in the sector, and the recent announcement that Halvik Corporation is opening an office location in Bloomfield will be adding to those numbers. Quasar Management is another new corporate addition to Greene County in 2022, bringing further growth.
Wages in Greene County are significantly below the national average, at $38,993 compared to $67,777. The productivity of the county’s economy has outpaced the national economy since 2016, 26% growth compared to 22.5% growth for the nation, and stands at $700,000,000 annually now.