Since losing his job in Seattle, Artagus Hicks has spent the past two years in Chattanooga looking for a full-time job.
The 36-year-old former UPS employee says he has had some part-time jobs and sees more opportunity lately in the job market.
“But it’s still hard to find work,” he said Thursday after applying for more jobs at the Tennessee Career Center. “The economy may be getting somewhat better, but jobs are still hard to come by.”
Nearly three years after the worst of the economic downturn ended, unemployment in May remained above 10 percent in 11 of the 18 counties in the region, according to figures released Thursday. The May jobless figures for Tennessee and Georgia showed an equal number of area counties reporting increases in unemployment as the number reporting declines.
Overall in the six-county Chattanooga metropolitan area, the jobless rate in May was unchanged at 8.4 percent. But in neighboring metro Cleveland, the jobless rate edged up by 0.1 percent to 9.5 percent and in metro Dalton the unemployment rate rose by 0.1 percent to 11.1 percent.