Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 8/8/16. Michael Bondi works in the dye lab while at Polartec's new Cleveland, Tennessee, textile plant on Monday, August 8, 2016.Top job growth cities
Metro areas with the biggest percentage growth in employees on nonfarm payrolls in the past 12 months1. Madera, Calif., up 6.8 percent2. Prescottt, Ariz, up 6.4 percent3. Janesville, Wis, up 5.8 percent4. Sebring, Fla., up 5.7 percent5. Cleveland Tenn., up 5.3 percentSource: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, data for 12 months ending in July, 2016
United Knitting Mills in Cleveland, like most U.S. textile and apparel companies, struggled to compete with low-cost imports and had to shrink its staff and production during the Great Recession and its aftermath.
But the 175,000-square-foot textile mill is growing again after a New England maker of polar fleece bought United Kniting Mills, doubled its staff and agreed to invest $10 million in the facility to add another 150 employees.
Polartec, a 110-year-old company based in Lawrence, Mass., bought United Knitting Mills last year and is relocating most of its production to Cleveland, where company president Gary Smith says energy, taxes and transportation costs are less. Smith said Cleveland "is a very business friendly environment" and should help Polartec expand its polar fleece business with less cost and fewer regulations than when it operated in Massachusetts.
"This is a strong combination that made a lot of sense," said Jerry Miller, the former United Knitting Mills president who helped orchestrate the sale last year following the untimely airplane crash and death of United Knitting Mills' former owner, Peter Mallen, in 2013.
The relocation and expansion planned by Polartec is part of a surge in jobs and investment in Cleveland that made the metro area of Bradley and Polk counties the fastest growing metro area in the tri-state region for employment growth in the past 12 months.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday that metro Cleveland added 3,039 jobs in the 12 months ending in July, boosting employment by 5.4 percent, or nearly twice the average of other 36 metro areas in Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.
While the non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate was lower in Nashville and Knoxville than the 4.9 percent rate in Cleveland during July, Cleveland still added jobs at a faster pace than all but four cities in the entire United States.
"I think we're experiencing a fully recovered economy and we're seeing job growth across all industries and in a lot of different fields," said Doug Berry, vice president of economic development for the Cleveland/Bradley County Chamber of Commerce.
In the past year, Wacker Chemical has filled most of the 650 jobs at its polysilicon manufacturing plant and Amazon has expanded its Charleston distribution facility from 800 to 1,144 employees, Berry said. Whirlpool, Mars, Coca-Cola bottling and other major employers are all hiring workers.
"We went from a glut of labor and people willing to take most any job to a market now where employees are getting more selective and employers are having to raise pay or benefits to recruit or keep workers," Berry said.
Employment in metropolitan Chattanooga also is expanding, although at far slower pace than the growth rate in Cleveland, Tenn.
In the past 12 months, the BLS estimates employment in metro Chattanooga grew by 5,262 workers, or by 1.2 percent. Metro Chattanooga includes Hamilton, Sequatchie and Marion counties in Tennessee and Catoosa, Dade and Walker counties in Georgia.
In metropolitan Dalton, Ga., which includes Whitfield and Murray counties in Northwest Georgia, employment grew by 1,100 jobs from July 2015 to July 2016, or 1.9 percent, government figures show.
In July, unemployment fell in 279 of the 397 U.S. metro areas, including Chattanooga, Cleveland and Dalton.
Another report released Wednesday by the payroll processing firm Automatic Data Processing suggests that the employment gains should continue this fall. ADP estimates private-sector employers added 177,000 jobs in August, continuing on the two previous months of strong job gains.
"The American job machine continues to hum along," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, which assists ADP in preparing the report.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340