Tennessee saw its unemployment rate drop to 3.5 percent in April.
This marks the second consecutive month the Volunteer State experienced a drop in its unemployment rate.
In March, the jobless rate was 3.6 percent.
Tennessee’s unemployment rate in January and February was 3.7 percent.
From April 2024 to April 2025, the state added 24,000 nonfarm jobs. The biggest gains were experienced in the government, leisure and hospitality (LH), and trade, transportation and utilities (TTU) sector. During this time span, Tennessee’s jobless rate dropped 0.4 percent.
From March 2025 to April 2025, over 33 percent of those job gains were added. The TTU industry saw the largest gains, followed by the professional and business services sector and the LH sector.
The industries that lost the most jobs from March 2025 to April 2025 were manufacturing and the mining, logging, and construction (MLC) industry.
The manufacturing industry lost 1,400 jobs during this time, while MLC saw a decrease of 1,200 jobs.
Tennessee’s unemployment rate is well below the national average of 4.2 percent.
Since 2016, there has only been two times the state has had a higher unemployment rate than the national average: November 2016 and April 2020.
The last time Tennessee had an unemployment rate over 4 percent was in August 2021. At this time, it had a jobless rate of 4.2 percent.
Furthermore, Tennessee has not had an unemployment rate above 5 percent since April 2021. The unemployment rate at that time was 5.2 percent.
Regarding wages, Tennessee’s average weekly earning for manufacturing jobs increased by 3 percent from March 2024 to March 2025.
This ranks seventh out of 10 southern states. South Carolina experienced the biggest gain at 12.9 percent.
– – –
Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected].
