End Of Seasonal Employment Spikes Unemployment Rates For January

Seasonal holiday employment that ended with the holidays at the start of the new year was one of the biggest factors that saw the unemployment rate spike upwards in some counties across Tennessee in January, that includes Cocke County. In fact, Ninety-three of Tennessee’s 95 counties had an uptick in unemployment during the month of January, that’s according to new data released by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development on Thursday.

For the first time in quite some time, Cocke County ranked the top 10 of counties with the highest unemployment, ties for the highest rate at 5.7%. That’s a huge increase of over 2%, as December’s unemployment rate sat at 3.6%. Now it was not just seasonal employment ending that affected Cocke County, but Sevier County as well, which typically has one of the top 5 lowest unemployment rates in the state. In January though, Sevier County’s unemployment rate jumped from 2.4% to 4.6%….a 2.2% increase.

Elsewhere around the area, Greene County’s rate jumped from 3.9 to 4.7%. Jefferson County’s rate up as well from 3.1 to 4.4%. Hamblen County saw the smallest increase and has the lowest unemployment rate in the area at 3.8%. That’s up from 3.2% in December. Knox County had the lowest unemployment rate for January, as seasonal numbers do not affect that county much. Knox County’s unemployment rate rose from 2.6% to 3%.

Tennessee’s state unemployment rate for January was 3.5%. Now the state number is seasonally adjusted, while the individual county numbers are not adjusted. So, the individual county numbers show a little better indication as to what is actually happening in the labor market.