Jobless in November
Unemployment declined last month in all19 counties in the Chattanooga region from the previous month. The November county jobless rates were:* Catoosa - 2.8 percent, down 0.4 percent* Hamilton - 3.1 percent, down 0.5 percent* Dade - 3.1 percent, down 0.3 percent* Walker - 3.2 percent, down 0.7 percent* Franklin - 3.2 percent, down 0.4 percent* Coffee - 3.3 percent, down 0.4 percent* Bradley - 3.4 percent, down 0.3 percent* Polk - 3.8 percent, down 0.4 percent* McMinn - 3.9 percent, down 0.3 percent* Sequatchie, 4.0 percent, down 0.4 percent* Chattooga - 4.0 percent, down 0.3 percent* Whitfield - 4.0 percent, down 0.3 percent* Marion - 4.2 percent, down 0.6 percent* Grundy - 4.2 percent, down 0.5 percent* Meigs - 4.2 percent, down 0.4 percent* Murray - 4.5 percent, down 0.2 percent* Van Buren - 4.5 percent, down 0.5 percent* Rhea - 4.6 percent, down 0.4 percent* Bledsoe - 5.2 percent, down 0.9 percentSources: Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development and Georgia Department of Labor
Chattanooga area employers added nearly 3,600 jobs over the past 12 months in metropolitan Chattanooga, helping to cut the local unemployment rate to the lowest November rate in 18 years last month.
The jobless rate in the 6-county Chattanooga area fell last month by 0.5 percentage points to 3.2 percent, according to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Although the pace of job growth in metro Chattanooga has fallen to less than half the torrid growth rate in 2017, Chattanooga's non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate during November was still below both the comparable U.S. rate of 3.5 percent and the statewide rate of 3.3 percent.
The unemployment rate fell in all 95 counties in Tennessee last month, ranging from 2.5 percent in the Nashville suburb of Williamson County to 5.8 percent in the West Tennessee county of Lauderdale.
In the Chattanooga region, unemployment varied last month from a low of 2.8 percent in the Northwest Georgia county of Catoosa up to 5.2 percent in Bledsoe County north of Chattanooga. Bledsoe County had the state's second highest unemployment rate, but it still fell nearly a full percentage point during November from 6.1 percent to 5.2 percent.
All but four counties in Tennessee had an unemployment rate of 5 percent or lower last month.
"It's very encouraging to have so many counties with unemployment rates below 5 percent during November," Tennessee Labor Commissioner Burns Phillips said. "That means more Tennesseans were working and taking home a paycheck as we headed into the holiday season."
Catoosa County, Georgia had the lowest monthly jobless rate since the summer of 2001. In neighboring Dade County, the jobless rate fell by three tenths of a percentage point to 3.1 percent, while unemployment declined by seven tenths of a percent last month in Walker County to 3.2 percent.
`Across Georgia, the non-seasonally adjusted jobless rate last month fell by a tenth of a percent to 3.5 percent - a 17-year low.
"This really has been a great year for Georgia," Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said in his monthly jobs report. "Across the state we continue to add jobs and find people to fill them. We've routinely set records."
In metro Dalton, the jobless rate declined by two tenths of a percentage point during November to 4.2 percent, although unemployment remained above the 4 percent low reached this fall. Among Georgia's 14 metro areas, only Albany and Warner Robbins had higher unemployment rates last month than in metro Dalton.
Unemployment in metro Dalton, which includes Whitfield and Murray counties in Georgia, dropped last month to less than a third of the 13.6 percent peak reached eight years ago during the depths of the Great Recession. But metro Dalton is one of the few metro regions in the United States that has yet to regain even 90 percent of the jobs it previously had.
The mills that produce the floorcovering materials that make Dalton America's "Carpet Capital" require far fewer workers than they did two decades ago. As a result, the 58, 576 workers in the Dalton area who were on the job last month was still down 11.4 percent from Dalton's peak employment of 66,086 reached at the end of 1999.
In metro Cleveland, Tennessee, employment grew to a record high last month while the jobless rate fell by four tenths of a percent last month to 3.4 percent.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 757-6340