Dr. Bill Fox, director of the University of Tennessee Center for Business and Economic Research
Unemployment in the Chattanooga area jumped last month by eight-tenths of a percent to the highest rate since last fall, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported Thursday.
With school out and government employment down, the jobless rate in metropolitan Chattanooga rose in June to 8.2 percent, the highest rate since last September. In the six-county Chattanooga area, 21,630 workers looking for jobs were unable to find employment last month.
Bill Fox, director for the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Tennessee, said most of the increase in unemployment stemmed from seasonal factors from the end of the school year when fewer school systems and colleges employ their own staff and their students are out looking for summer jobs.
“But similar to what we’ve seen in the past couple of years, there has been a bit of a summer swoon in terms of job creation and a bit of an uptick in the jobless rate,” Fox said. “We still expect moderate growth in the economy and a decline in unemployment over time. But the jobless rate is likely to stay near the current levels for some time with the fairly sluggish pace of this recovery.”
JoAnn Norris, a former tufting machine operator for Shaw Industries in Dalton, Ga., is among those looking for work. She lost her job in February after nearly 35 years at the carpet company.