Higher interest rates imposed this year by the Federal Reserve Board have yet to disrupt much of Chattanooga's labor market, with unemployment in metropolitan Chattanooga falling again last month to 3.3% as students returned to the classroom and many employers continue to seek more workers to fill job vacancies.
The nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the six-county Chattanooga metro area declined by two-tenths of a percentage point during August to its lowest level since May, according to employment figures released Thursday. Last month's jobless rate for the Chattanooga area was only a half of a percentage point above the all-time record-low jobless rate of 2.8% reached earlier this year.
The Department of Labor and Workforce Development reported that every county in Tennessee experienced lower unemployment rates in August, with 89 of the 95 counties recording rates below 5%.
But two Southeast Tennessee counties remained among the top 10 counties in Tennessee for unemployment. Bledsoe County had the second-highest rate of all counties in the state during August at 5.4%, but its rate still dropped from 6.1% from the prior month. Rhea County had the eighth-highest rate of any county in Tennessee at 4.8%, down from 5.3% in July.
Williamson County's unemployment rate was the lowest in Tennessee during August. At 2.3%, the county's rate dropped by 0.3 of a percentage point from its July figure of 2.6%.
Staff File Photo by Dave Flessner / The Sonic Drive-In on Shallowford Road, shown Thursday, Sept. 22, 2022, is among many local restaurants seeking to hire more workers as unemployment remains near historic lows in most of the Chattanooga area.Despite the historically low jobless rates during August, business and political leaders responding to a new Power Poll are divided about whether they think the local economy will turn south because of recent interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve Board.
Just over half of the Power Poll respondents think the economy will decrease in the next year, although most who think so believe any downturn will be slight.
Among Power Poll respondents, 19.1% think the economy will get better in the next year, 40.45 % think it will decrease slightly and 11.24% think it will decrease significantly. The rest say they expect the economy to stay about the same.
With inflation up and unemployment still near historic lows, leaders said they are planning additional wage increases next year, with about half of the respondents planning wage hikes between 2% and 6%. No employers said they are planning wage cuts, and 11.24% said they are planning wage increases of more than 6%.