Unemployment rose across the Chattanooga region last month as schools let out for summer and more students and graduates entered the labor market.
Despite yearly gains in private-sector jobs in both Tennessee and Georgia, the number of government jobs continued to shrink, according to reports released Thursday by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the Georgia Department of Labor.
Across the 19-county region of Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia, county jobless rates were up in June in all counties. Unemployment in the region varied from a low of 7.4 percent in the North Georgia bedroom communities of Catoosa County up to 12.8 percent and 12.9 percent in the rural counties of Rhea and Van Buren counties.
Three years after the official end of the recession, eight of the 19 area counties still had double-digit unemployment during June.
Job growth has suffered this year from federal budget sequestration, school budget cuts, TVA job losses and other reductions in government employment.