All Tennessee counties in May had an unemployment rate at or below 5 percent.
The state’s current jobless rate stands at 3.5 percent, which ties it for America’s 17th lowest unemployment rate. This marks the second consecutive month that the Volunteer State has had this jobless rate.
Tennessee is only one county away from having every county with an unemployment rate below five percent. Hardeman County was the lone one with a jobless rate of 5 percent.
The county’s unemployment rate increased by 0.5 percentage points from April.
Besides Hardeman County, the counties with the highest unemployment rate were Johnson County and Perry County.
Johnson County saw a 0.3 percentage decrease in its unemployment rate from April. Johnson County, along with Cocke County and Unicoi County, were the only three Tennessee counties to see their unemployment rates decrease.
In Perry County, the opposite occurred, as the county’s jobless rate increased by 0.8 percentage points.
All three of these counties have a population of less than 30,000 people.
On the other side, the county with the lowest unemployment rate was Williamson. Four other counties tied for second place: Sevier, Rutherford, Cheatham, and Wilson.
Williamson County had a jobless rate of 2.6 percent, whereas the four second place counties had an unemployment rate of 2.7 percent.
In April, Williamson County had the state’s lowest unemployment rate at 2.2 percent. Its jobless rate increased by 0.5 percentage points in May.
The counties tied for the second-lowest unemployment rate also saw an increase in May. Rutherford County saw its unemployment rate increase by 0.4 percentage points, while the others saw theirs rise by 0.3 percentage points.
As for cities, two Tennessee cities have the lowest unemployment rate: Franklin and Spring Hill.
Nashville, the state’s biggest city, had an unemployment rate of 2.8 percent.
Tennessee’s second biggest city, Memphis, had an unemployment rate of 4.6 percent.
Every Tennessee city experienced an increase in its jobless rate in May.
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Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected].
You can find part time NO BENEFITS jobs all day long. Very different story if you NEED full time job with health insurance,etc especially when you are older and not eligible for Medicare yet. Seniors are being let go from their full time jobs at a rapid pace – having to draw unemployment- which now is only 12 weeks thanks to republicans Sexton and Faison and others who voted to reduce unemployment. It takes seniors longer to find a job. They should be ashamed and they are the reason I’m no longer a Republican
I believe the unemployment numbers are much higher