Job growth in metropolitan Chattanooga should be 20 percent faster than the U.S. average in 2010, economists said today.
Alex Miron, associated economist at for Moody’s Economy.com, said employment in the six-county Chattanooga area should grow in 2010 by 1.2 percent, compared with a 1 percent employment growth nationwide.
The jobless rate will still rise to a peak of 9.5 percent in Chattanooga by the third quarter, however, as more workers try to find the available jobs, Mr. Miron said.
“Overall, Chattanooga has experienced a much smaller decline in employment than at the national level, so with all of the development now going on in the area, it wasn’t surprising to see Chattanooga emerge from the recession,” Mr. Miron said. “I expect the development of the Volkswagen plant and its supplier park to be a big driver of growth this year.”
Chattanooga moved from recession to recovery at the end of 2009, according to the Moody’s economic assessment of major cities. But other MidSouth metro areas – including Atlanta, Nashville, Knoxville, Dalton, Ga., and Rome, Ga. – were still mired in the recession as 2009 ended, Moody’s said in its most recent Adversity Index report.