Cleveland leads U.S. in rate of job growth
Cleveland, Tenn., led the nation in the past year in the share of new jobs added from February 2015 to February 2016.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said employment in metropolitan Cleveland jumped by 9.3 percent in the past 12 months, adding 4,968 jobs in the two-county area. Among the nation’s 387 metropolitan areas, no other city added a bigger share of new jobs, BLS said.
Cleveland was buoyed by the opening of the state’s biggest new private investment – the $2.5 billion Wacker Chemical polysilicon production plant near Charleston, Tenn., which has added more than 600 jobs, and Amazon, which increased its distribution facility in Bradley County from 800 jobs to 1,144 jobs.
“We’ve had a number of new retail, hotel and industrial expansions, as well as continued improvement in construction and development,” said Doug Berry, vice president of economic development at the Cleveland/Bradley County Chamber of Commerce. “It’s really been a broad-based recovery.”