Unemployment Rates Drop in Nearly Every Tennessee County

In a new release on Thursday, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD) announced March 2023 decreases in the unemployment rates in all but one county. Meigs County, a rural area situated between Chattanooga and Knoxville with a population of around 13,000, was the only one of 95 counties that saw an increase in its unemployment figure – by 0.7 percent.

Meigs County also had the highest unemployment rate of any county, with 5.6 percent. Most of the other top ten highest unemployment rates were in rural counties, including Bledsoe, Haywood, Lake, Scott, Clay, Cocke, Decatur, Lauderdale, and Grundy Counties.

One notable exception to the high rural unemployment trend was Moore County, which is home to the Jack Daniel’s Distillery. The county had the lowest unemployment rate in the entire state as of this March – coming in at 2.3 percent.

Seven of the top ten lowest unemployment rates were in Davidson and its bordering counties of Cheatham, Robertson, Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson, and Wilson. All of these counties had a March unemployment rate of 2.5 percent or lower. These statistics may be somewhat unsurprising to Nashvillians, who have seen a 20 percent rise in population in the last decade and large companies such as AllianceBernstein continuing to move their corporate operations to the region.

Knox County, home to the University of Tennessee and several other large employers, rounds out the top ten with an unemployment rate of just 2.6.

Labor statistics for all counties, regions, and metropolitan areas are available to view here.

The Volunteer State as a whole has experienced a slow downtick in its unemployment rate since last year, landing on 3.4 percent this March, which was just lower than the national rate of 3.5 percent.

When compared with its neighbors, Tennessee’s unemployment rate lagged behind some. Alabama (2.3 percent), Arkansas (3.0 percent), Georgia (3.1 percent), Missouri (2.5 percent), and Virginia (3.2 percent) all fared better than the Volunteer State. Kentucky (3.8 percent), Mississippi (3.5 percent), and North Carolina (3.5 percent) had slightly higher unemployment rates in March.

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Mac Roberts is a reporter at The Tennessee Star. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Unemployment Line” by freestocks-photos.