PDF: Tennessee economic outlook
Job growth in Tennessee is predicted to increase this year at the fastest pace since 2006.
But a new economic forecast predicts the Volunteer State won’t recover all the jobs lost during the “Great Recession” for another three years.
In their annual economic forecast given Thursday to Gov. Bill Haslam, University of Tennessee economists predict the state will add more than 36,000 jobs during 2011, boosting employment by 1.3 percent.
But even with such gains, the state’s jobless rate at the end of the year is still expected to remain above 9 percent — or more than double the rate of a decade ago.
“Unemployment is expected to remain elevated for many years to come,” said Matt Murray, associate director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at UT. “Nonfarm employment, which is now growing, will not return to pre-recessionary levels until 2014.”
Chattanooga is likely to fare better than most of the state, however.
Unemployment in Hamilton County fell to a two-year low last month of 7.7 percent with the addition of 8,450 jobs in the county over the past year. Among Tennessee’s 95 counties, only 10 surrounding Nashville and Knoxville had lower jobless rates than Hamilton County in December.
“We’re definitely seeing an uptick in hiring, although it’s certainly not back to the robust levels we saw four or five years ago,” said Mark Campbell, owner of the Chattanooga and Dalton, Ga., franchise offices for Manpower, the world’s largest staffing agency. “Last year was better than 2010, and I hope this year is better than last year.”
Campbell said Volkswagen suppliers and related businesses continue to add employees.
December unemploymentDecember / Change from NovemberTennesseeRhea 12.0 percent -0.2 percentBledsoe 11.9 percent +0.5 percentMeigs 11.8 percent -0.4 percentMcMinn 11.7 percent -0.3 percentPolk 11.4 percent -0.6 percentMarion 10.0 percent +0.3 percentFranklin 9.4 percent -0.7 percentBradley 8.5 percent -0.3 percentSequatchie 8.5 percent -0.7 percentHamilton 7.7 percent -0.4 percentGeorgiaChattooga 14.3 percent +2.3 percentMurray 12.8 percent -0.2 percentWhitfield 12.6 percent -1 percentWalker 11.5 percent +1 percentCatoosa 7.8 percent -0.1 percentDade 7.8 percent -0.1 percentSources: Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development and Georgia Department of LaborGrowth forecast for 20111.3 percent — Employment growth in Tennessee1.4 percent — Growth in Tennessee manufacturing jobs9.1 percent — Year-end jobless rate forecast in Tennessee, down from current 9.4 percent rate3.3 percent — Inflation-adjusted growth in person incomeSource: University of Tennessee Center for Business and Economic Research
Planned additions this year by Amazon, Volkswagen, Home Service and Alstom Power, among others, should add more than 3,000 jobs in the Chattanooga region, according to the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.
Unemployment in metropolitan Chattanooga declined by 0.2 percent last month to 8.3 percent, the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported Thursday. In the six-county Chattanooga area, employment was up by a net 8,400 jobs over a year ago, when the jobless rate was 9.2 percent.
Chattanooga’s jobless rate last month remained below the comparable, nonseasonally adjusted 9.1 percent rate for both Tennessee and the United States in December.
But in nearby Dalton, nearly one of every seven workers is predicted to be out of a job at the end of 2011. The 12.7 percent unemployment rate in metro Dalton in December, although down 0.5 percent from November, was still the highest among Georgia’s 14 metropolitan areas.
Over the past year, the number of Dalton area residents on the job fell by 1,658, state records show.
Statewide, Georgia’s jobless rate in December was 10.2 percent, up from 10 percent in November, due to a loss of 21,800 jobs during the month.
Tennessee’s jobless rate in December matched the U.S. rate of 9.4 percent. The state’s seasonally adjusted jobless rate peaked at 10.9 percent in the summer of 2009 — the highest unemployment rate since 1983.
Over the past year and a half, Tennessee’s jobless rate has dropped by 1.5 percent, in part, from the first significant net gains in manufacturing employment in a decade, the UT study showed.
Despite such gains, however, 10 of the 14 counties in Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia still had double-digit unemployment rates last month.
Murray predicts many workers will have trouble finding new jobs even as the economy improves steadily over the next decade.
“Large numbers of individuals in Tennessee and across the country remain ‘structurally unemployed’ because their skill set does not match the requirements of employers,” he said in the economic report to the governor. “There is also the practical challenge of absorbing large numbers of discouraged workers, underemployed workers and new entrants to the full-time work pool.”
Sheila Jordan, a 43-year-old social worker who moved to Chattanooga three years ago from Arkansas, is among those who have been unemployed for most of the past two years.
For most of her career, she helped others try to find new jobs, but now she is experiencing that hardship first-hand.
“I’m just shocked with my experience and education to be in this situation,” she said Thursday while applying for work at the Tennessee Career Center at the Eastgate Town Center. “It’s been a real revelation to me.”
Randy Lambert, 54, has been jobless for nearly two years after working as a medical equipment salesman with a six-figure income. The unemployed Chattanoogan now must live on $115 a week in unemployment benefits and $94 a month in food stamps.
“I can’t find a job anywhere and I’m willing to do most anything,” he said. “You hear a lot of talk about the economy getting better, but I sure don’t see it yet.”