Unemployment fell in the Chattanooga area last month to the lowest level in 18 months while the jobless rate in nearby Dalton, Georgia dropped even more to the lowest level in more than 11 years as employers scrambled to fill job vacancies in an increasingly tight labor market.
The Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development said Thursday that unemployment in metro Chattanooga dropped last month by two-tenths of a percentage point to 3.7%. That was the lowest jobless level in the 6-county Chattanooga metro area since February 2020 before the spread of coronavirus forced much of the economy to shut down of shift to remote work.
The jobless rate fell even lower in August in nearby Dalton, Georgia - the self-described "carpet capital of the world" - where unemployment dropped last month to 3.1%, the lowest unemployment rate for the 2-county metro area since early 2000. Dalton carpet mills continue to hire to meet increased demand for floorcoverings due to more home remodeling and construction starts during the pandemic.
Unemployment across most of the Chattanooga region was below both the Tennessee jobless rate of 4.6% and the U.S. rate of 5.2% in August.
Dalton has cut its unemployment level even more from a pandemic high of 19.8% in April of last year to a mere 3.1% last month.
But despite such gains, employment remains below its pre-pandemic levels and the number of workers in the labor market has yet to return to the levels of two years ago.
"Although we are seeing fewer unemployed individuals now than before the pandemic started, we are also still seeing a decreased total number of people in the workforce when compared to numbers recorded prior to the pandemic," Georgia Labor Commissioner Mark Butler said. "This will continue to cause a hiring crunch until we can attract more people back to the workforce to fill the record number of job openings."
The labor force decreased in Dalton in August by 756 while Chattanooga's labor force shrunk last month by 1,792, due primarily to students returning to the classroom and the end of some temporary summer jobs.
In the Chattanooga region, unemployment in August remained lowest in the counties of Northwest Georgia and highest in rural counties in Southeast Tennessee. Statewide, rural counties generally have had higher unemployment rates, but the highest jobless rate in the state during August was in Memphis where Shelby County's unemployment rate was 6.7%.
From its peak in April 2020 when Chattanooga's jobless rate jumped to a post-World War II high of 14.1%, Chattanooga employers have added back nearly 40,000 jobs and cut the jobless rate to only about a fourth of what it was in the spring of last year.
Employers continue to struggle to fill many job vacancies.
Employ Georgia, the GDOL's online job listing service at employgeorgia.com showed about 1,043 active job postings in Dalton for August, compared with a total of 1,808 persons counted as unemployed in Dalton last month.
Across Tennessee, the job market appears even tighter. Tennessee's career centers on Thursday posted 487,865 job openings across the state, or nearly 3.5 jobs for each of the 141,194 persons who were unemployed in the Volunteer State last month.
Contact Dave Flessner at dflessner@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6340.
Jobless in August
* Dade, 2.1%, up from 2% in July
* Catoosa, 2.2%, up from 2.1% in July
* Walker, 2.5%, up from 2.3% in July
* Gordon, 2.5%, down from 2.7% in July
* Whitfield, 3%, down from 3.2% in July
* Murray, 3.3%, down from 3.9% in July
* Chattooga, 3.6%, down from 3.8% in July
* Polk, 3.9%, down from 4.4% in July
* Coffee, 4%, down from 4.4% in July
* Hamilton, 4.1%, down from 4.5% in July
* Bradley, 4.1%, down from 4.6% in July
* Franklin, 4.1%, down from 4.4% in July
* McMinn, 4.3%, down from 4.8% in July
* Marion, 4.4%, down from 5.1% in July
* Sequatchie, 4.5%, down from 4.9% in July
* Meigs, 4.6%, down from 5.1% in July
* Bledsoe, 5.1%, down from 5.8% in July
* Rhea, 5.3%, down from 5.9% in July
* Van Buren, 5.3%, down from 5.9% in July
Sources: Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development and the Georgia Department of Labor