by Jon Styf
The unemployment rate dropped in all of Tennessee’s 95 counties in April and each county now has an unemployment rate below 5%.
Williamson County was at 1.9%, the lowest rate for the county in 22 years and the lowest mark in the state.
The statewide rate, released last week, is at 3.3% while nationally, the seasonally adjusted rate is 3.4%. The state’s all-time low rate is 3.2%.
The second-lowest county rate is 2% in Moore County while Bledsoe County had the highest rate at 4.6% and both Meigs and Haywood counties dropped a full percentage point to reach 4.5% and 4%, respectively.
Davidson County is at 2.1%, the same as the average for the entire Nashville-Murfreesboro region. Shelby County is at 3.5%.
– – –
Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter at The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies
Photo “Coffee Shop” by Tim Douglas.
As per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a person is considered unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the past 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. So now what we know is that less than 5 percent of people in TN meet these criteria… useless information.
The labor participation rate is a better indicator. There should also be a “number of jobs” indicator. more than a few people I know have two, and some three, just to make ends meet. It would also be interesting to know how many illegal aliens are in TN, and how many are working, and how much of that income goes back into the government coffers to cover the expense of the taxpayer funded handouts they have received.
Have to wonder how many qualified people continue to sit at home and not look for employment. The unemployment number published by the government is so biased that it can only used to identify trends.