Cocke County Unemployment Rate Rises .1%…Other Counties Up By More

Several counties in the area saw their unemployment rates rise by just a little bit in May…that includes Cocke County. According to numbers released on Thursday by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce development…Cocke County’s unemployment rate rose from 4.7 in April to 4.8 in May. That is still lower than the 5.1% unemployment rate from a year ago. Cocke County still ranks near the top as far as high unemployment rates, but is not as bad as recent months. Cocke county sits at #91 out of 95 counties.

Elsewhere around the area, Greene County saw their unemployment rate rise from 3.3% in April to 3.7% in May. Hamblen County also went up from 3.1 to 3.5%. Jefferson County’s rate rose 1/2 a percent from 3.0 in April to 3.5 in May and Sevier County went up just a bit from 2.6 to 2.8%. Statewide, only two counties had unemployment rates higher than 5%…those were Perry & Bledsoe Counties. Once again the lowest unemployment rate was in Williamson County at 2.3%. The unemployment rate for the state overall is 3.6%.