Unemployment in Tennessee and Georgia remains low as new year begins

Tennessee and Georgia began the new year with seasonally adjusted jobless rates below the national average and unchanged from the end of 2019.

Tennessee's statewide seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for January 2020 is 3.3%, according to data released Thursday by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. January is the third consecutive month Tennessee has recorded a jobless rate of 3.3%, which is a tenth of a percentage point below where the state's unemployment rate was a year ago.

Tennessee employers added 6,500 new jobs in January and added a total of 46,100 net new jobs during the past 12 months.

Georgia employers increased their staffs by 9,800 in January and by 53,100 jobs in the past year, lowering the jobless rate in Georgia in January of 2020 to 3.1% compared with 3.8% a year ago. Georgia's jobless rate, which fell below the national rate for the first time since the Great Recession last fall, was unchanged in January from December's 3.1% rate.

Nationally, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate did increase between December and January by 0.1% to the current rate of 3.6%.

"The number of Georgians employed is the highest ever, the number of unemployed is the lowest since 2001, and EmployGeorgia.com is now listing over 101,000 on-line jobs available for Georgians today," Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said.