Unemployment in the Chattanooga area dropped last month to within a tenth of a percentage point of its all-time low as local employers continue to add jobs despite rising interest rates and growing recession fears.
The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development said the jobless rate in the six-county Chattanooga metro area declined to 3% in March, down from 3.3% in February and near the 2.9% record low reached last April. Over the past year, Chattanooga employers added 8,993 more jobs to boost employment in Chattanooga to an all-time high in March.
Chattanooga's unemployment rate remained below both the statewide average of 3.4% and the national average of 3.6% in March.
But across Southeast Tennessee and Northwest Georgia, about half of the 19 area counties had jobless rates above the U.S. rate, including Meigs and Bledsoe counties, which had the highest unemployment rates of any Tennessee county. Among the 95 counties across the Volunteer State, Meigs County was the only county where the jobless rate rose last month, and Meigs County's 5.6% rate in March was the highest in the state.
Unemployment also rose last month in two Northwest Georgia counties as jobs fell at some of the carpet mills suffering from the downturn in the housing market sparked by higher interest rates. After unemployment fell below 3% in the Georgia suburbs of Chattanooga and below 4% in the Carpet Capital of Dalton last year, unemployment increased in March in both Whitfield and Catoosa counties.
Employment in metro Dalton last month was down by 543 jobs from a year earlier, boosting the jobless rate in Dalton to 4.2% compared with a 3.5% jobless rate a year earlier, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.
Jeff Lorberbaum, president of the world's biggest floorcovering manufacturer Mohawk Industries, said carpet and tile sales are slowing and manufacturers are cutting costs in response.
"Around the world, central banks are raising interest rates to slow their economies and reduce inflation," Lorberbaum said in Mohawk's earning report this week. "These actions lower our industry volume as new home sales and residential remodeling are postponed."
The trucking industry may also be hitting the brakes this year.
Craig Fuller, president of the Chattanooga-based FreightWaves, which monitors trucking shipments, said March activity was the lowest since 2021.
"We think another sharp, painful downturn in the U.S. truckload market is imminent, and it could be as bad as 2019," Fuller wrote in a FreightWaves report last month. "Just three years after 2019's trucking bloodbath, another is on the way."
But for now despite the slowdown in some interest-rate sensitive industries, Tennessee career centers listed 370,831 job openings across the state on Friday, or more than three times as many as the number of unemployed Tennesseans still looking for work. On Thursday, Food City and the Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union both conducted job fairs to try to fill hundreds of job openings.
The Chattanooga Area Chamber of Commerce, which works to recruit both businesses and workers, lists 3,168 open jobs in the Chattanooga area on its website, chattanoogacalling.com.
"Like most communities in the current labor market, workforce recruitment and development is a key challenge for many businesses," said Charles Wood, named president of the Chattanooga Chamber this week after heading the group's economic development program for the past 11 years. "Fortunately with our scenic beauty, location and relatively low cost of living, Chattanooga has a lot of attractions for many workers."
Nationwide, jobless applications also remain low by historic standards, according to a report Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending April 22 fell by 16,000 to 230,000 as the labor market continues to show strength despite some weakness in other parts of the economy. The four-week moving average of claims, which flattens some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 6,000 to 236,000.
At the start of the year, weekly claims were running around 200,000, and they have gradually moved higher.
Overall, 1.86 million people were collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended April 15, 3,000 fewer than the previous week.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6340.
Jobless in March
The nonseasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped last month in 14 of the 19 Chattanooga-area counties. Half of the local counties had jobless rates at or below the U.S . average jobless rate of 3.6% in March.
Georgia
Catoosa: 2.9%, up from 2.8% in February.
Chattooga: 4.1%, down from 4.3% in February.
Dade: 2.9%, unchanged from February.
Murray: 4.2%, down from 4.3% in February.
Walker: 3.2%, unchanged from February.
Whitfield: 4.2%, up from 3.9% in February.
Tennessee
Bledsoe: 5.3%, down from 5.9% in February.
Bradley: 3.5%, down from 3.7% in February.
Coffee: 3.2%, down from 3.6% in February.
Franklin: 3.3%, down from 3.8% in February.
Grundy: 4.4%, down from 5.3% in February.
Hamilton: 3%, down from 3.4% in February.
Marion: 3.4%, down from 3.9% in February.
McMinn: 4.3%, down from 4.6% in February.
Meigs: 5.6%, up from 4.9% in February.
Polk: 3.8%, down from 4.5% in February.
Rhea: 4.3%, down from 4.7% in February.
Sequatchie: 3.6%, down from 4.1% in February.
Van Buren: 4.4%, down from 4.8% in February.
Sources: Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development and Georgia Department of Labor